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SCENES AND CHARACTERS 

ILLUSTRATING 

CHRISTIAN TRUTH. 

t- 1 -* L X ' * 


No. VI. 

?£. •• 

ALFRED, 

BY THE AUTHOR 



OF “ SOPHIA MORTON / 7 u TRIALS OF A SCHOOL GIRL , 77 &C. 

r / 


k 


1 ■ - t • (f i 

AND 


n. ^ 

THE BETTER PART, 

BY THE SAME AUTHOR 


BOSTON: 

JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. 

1836 . 







{j/oL 


ALFRED. 


D 


BY THE AUTHOR 

OF 11 SOPHIA MORTON/' (< TRIALS OF A SCHOOL GIRL,” &C. 


7i 


% 

a/.4 \ £■' 4 - 


^i'l * 






“ My spirit yearns to bring 
The lost ones back, — yearns with desire intense; 

And struggles hard to wring 
Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence." 

Bryant. 


BOSTON: 


JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. 

1836 . 




Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1836, by 
James Munroe Sc Co., in the Clerk’s office of the District 
Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



CAMBRIDGE: 


CHARLES FOLSOM 
Printer to the University. 




/ f'o% 


CONTENTS. 


Chap. Page 

1. A Sister’s Charge ..1 

2. A Sister’s Trial.10 

3. Temptations.14 

4. A Crisis.20 

5. Plans and Purposes.31 

6. Conscience .41 

7. Pardon for the Penitent.47 

8. A New Preacher.66 

9. Conflicts.76 

10. A Stratagem.85 

11. The Gamester’s End.92 

12. Repentance not Innocence.97 

13. Conclusion.106 



















ALFRED. 


Chapter I. 

A SISTER’S CHARGE. 

u I heard the voice of prayer, — a mother’s prayer, 

A dying mother for her only son j 
Her hand was on his head, 

Her words of love were said, 

Her work was done.” 

“ Matilda,” said Mrs. Brinley upon her death¬ 
bed, “ while my strength lasts, let us talk about 
what is always nearest my heart, the only source 
of anxiety I have in leaving this world, — the fu¬ 
ture destiny of your brother. I have not a friend 
in the world to whom I feel willing to give him 
up. Not one in whom I can entirely confide for 
the formation of his character, the training of his 
heart, except yourself. I have that faith in your 
principles, that confidence in your strength of 
.character, that perfect security in your affection, 
which I cannot have in any other person; this 
makes me sure, that if I am to place any earthly 
protection about him, it must be your care and 
influence. And I am not presumptuous in this, 
I believe. I know too well how unavailing are 
the best human means without the aid of His 
1 



2 


ALFRED. 


spirit, in whom we should put our absolute trust. 
I know, that from the feeblest instrument used in 
his name, he can elicit strength. If I leave 
Alfred under your care, I shall feel as if you 
were both more immediately under the superin¬ 
tendence of your Heavenly Father, and I shall 
go to my rest in perfect security that lie will not 
forsake the orphan. Do you feel willing to ac¬ 
cept this charge, my daughter?” 

“ Willing! O mother,” replied Matilda, as 
soon as she could command her feelings, “ how 
shall I express myself? I ought to say, perhaps, 
what I am sure I feel, that I am unfit to assume 
such a responsibility. Any woman would be so in 
some respects, and I certainly have my share of 
humility. But I do know, that there is no other 
person who can feel the deep interest in my 
brother that I do, who will have such a regard 
for his real good, who will labor with such soul- 
felt zeal as I shall for the welfare of his spirit. 
Mother, we know how all-important this spiritual 
culture is, for we have felt its value together. 
We have abundantly proved, that there is nothing 
in this world worth having without it. And the 
bare idea of Alfred’s being placed under the in¬ 
fluence of selfish, worldly people, would, next to 
the loss of ybu, be my greatest sorrow.” 

“ The loss of your mother ! My child do not 
be selfish in these feelings. Give me up cheer¬ 
fully to that life of happiness, which I have been 
denied on earth, but which now my panting soul 
absolutely longs for. Matilda, blessed child ! I 
grieve to part with you; but I leave you without 


A sister’s charge. 


3 

a shade of anxiety. I cannot feel that for you, 
for you have always made God your friend; and, 
however he may see fit to chequer your lot, I 
know that he has you in his keeping. And now 
that you are to take your brother into your guar¬ 
dianship, my worldly troubles are over. 

“ I hear Alfred’s voice inquiring for you; call 
him to me, my dear, that I may give him my 
blessing before I go.” 

The affectionate, fervent admonitions of the dy¬ 
ing mother to this, her only boy, given at broken 
intervals as her wasting strength permitted, — her 
emphatic charge, that he should now obey his 
sister in every thing, and look up to her as he had 
done to herself, — powerfully affected his sensitive 
heart. He threw himself sobbing into his sister’s 
arms. “ You will be my mother then, Matilda ; — 
I had rather you would take care of me than any¬ 
body else in the world, and I will always do as 
you say.” He could not be prevailed on to quit 
his mother’s side. He had never felt before that 
she would die, though he knew that his sister 
thought so; and he would not lose one moment 
suddenly become so precious. The mother died 
that night, her last look fondly intent upon her chil¬ 
dren. Her last words, that could be distinguished, 
were, “ ‘ I pray not that thou shouldst take them 
out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them 
from the evil. Sanctify them through thy truth.’ ” 

In childhood, emotions however strong, cannot 
be lasting. For weeks the impression of death, 
the first time witnessed, and the death of one so 
much beloved, dwelt upon Alfred’s mind in all its 


4 


ALFRED. 


solemnity. It subdued his spirit, checked his im¬ 
petuous impulses, and strengthened his affection¬ 
ate obedience to his sister; but it passed away like 
the light cloud, that but veils the rising sun for a 
moment, and then vanishes for ever. 

Matilda Brinley was thus left at the early age 
of eighteen an orphan, in possession of a very 
small property, and with the entire care, devolving 
upon her, of a young brother ; these two were 
sole survivors of a once numerous and prospering 
family. The property consisted chiefly of a 
small, convenient house; and Matilda’s plan, sug¬ 
gested by her mother, was to rent it to a respect¬ 
able, trustworthy family, and to take lodgings with 
them for herself and brother. This arrangement, 
with the well-directed efforts of her ingenious 
mind, enabled her to provide for all reasonable 
wants, and to keep her brother at school until he 
was of an age to depend upon himself. 

It was no common or easy task for a young, 
solitary girl, the care of an active, turbulent boy 
of thirteen, with a most excellent disposition, but 
of quick, strong passions, a lively temper, and 
an eager, restless love of amusement. Nothing 
but the confiding love of a mother would have 
seen prudence and necessity in such a step. Mrs. 
Brinley had reason to feel the most undoubting 
confidence in the strength of Matilda’s character ; 
her already ripened judgment, her firm, unde¬ 
viating, religious principle. The well-meaning 
people, into whose hands she cheerfully confided 
the temporal concerns of her children, would 
have been the most unfit in the world to take 


a sister’s charge. 


5 


charge of their characters. Matilda embraced 
it in the simplicity of faith ; never doubting that 
the arm, on which she leaned, would abundantly 
support her in her arduous undertaking. 

Supernatural strength, however, is not given 
even to the most humbly confiding. It is impos¬ 
sible for any female, except with a mother’s love 
and authority, to guide and restrain the efferves¬ 
cing passions of a high-spirited boy. And do 
not even the best mothers often find this totally 
beyond their power ? 

It is not strange, therefore, that Matilda, though 
possessed of uncommon powers, trained to a re¬ 
markable degree of excellence, should find her¬ 
self often unequal to the task she had undertaken. 
What could be done by a girl of such a character, 
with the most prudent, affectionate, and unspar¬ 
ing efforts, and a truly anxious heart, she did. 
Her attempts to strengthen his moral principles, 
and to fix industrious, regular habits, wero par¬ 
tially successful. He learned to control his tem¬ 
per, and to keep somewhat within the bounds 
of discretion in the prosecution of his various 
schemes of pleasure and mischief. But the only 
motive, on which she could rely to move him to 
her purpose, was his love for her. After exhaust¬ 
ing every argument she could devise, human and 
divine, to persuade or dissuade in regard to 
some favorite project, she would yield. 

“ Well, Alfred, if you are so determined upon 
it, I will give up to you ; but you know how 
unhappy it will make me.” 

“ Yes, I know it. I wish you would not feel 
1 * 


G 


ALFRED. 


so about suc?h little things.” Then throwing his 
arms about her neck, “ O Matilda, I do love 
you so much, I cannot bear to tease you. 
Don’t look so sober at me ; I love fun dearly, to 
be sure, but I love you more. Kiss me, and I 
will do as you say.” 

“ Not because I say it, I hope, but because it 
is right.” 

“O, don’t trouble your head about my lohys. 
It is no matter why. I promise you I will not 
do it, that’s enough.” 

Though the promise was always to be relied 
on, this was far from satisfying Matilda’s wishes. 
She indeed rejoiced in the power she possessed 
over her brother’s affectionate heart, but she 
longed to train those precious affections upward 
to their Source. 

“ O,” thought she, as she paced backward and 
forward, in deep and anxious reflection upon her 
duty, “ if he would only love God as he loves me l 
If he would only believe, that this love is true 
happiness, that" it is absolutely necessary to make 
him perfectly happy instead of being a bar to it, as 
he thinks, what a glorious creature he would be ! 
But as it is, what security have I? Now that 
he is but a boy, I can keep him from going very 
wrong ; but what is to become of him when he 
goes into the world, without this life-sustaining 
principle 1 It is not, that he is weak and easily 
led away. I might possibly have more hope, if it 
were so. But it is, that he does not love the 
right. Serious things make no impression upon 
him, religion has no attraction for him, and he 


A SISTER S CHARGE. 


7 


shuns it. He does not want to be religious ; and 
how soon, O how soon, that will end in not 
wanting to be pure, or upright, or moral, or any 
thing, but — what I hate to think of.” 

At the age of fifteen, Alfred entered, according 
to agreement, into the employment of Messrs. 
Brown, Harrison, and Co.; a thriving establish¬ 
ment, doing very extensive business, and on 
many accounts an excellent place for him. It 
brought him at once under some most wholesome 
restraints. He soon displayed a talent for busi¬ 
ness. 

He was always on the alert, alive to every hint 
with regard to his duty, acute and persevering in 
learning its details, and active, cheerful, and 
thorough in performing them. Then his spirited, 
generous conduct, his almost feminine tender¬ 
ness of heart, his bright and buoyant cheerfulness, 
endeared him to his companions, and secured 
their respect as well as affection. 

He rose rapidly in the estimation of his 
employers. They were more than satisfied with 
him, and took great pains to convince his sister, 
that the fears which she had confided to them, 
were without foundation. 

“ Do not distress yourself about Alfred, my 
dear young lady,” said Mr. Brown, the senior 
partner. “ He is a fine fellow, and I would not 
part with him for his weight— in hardware.” 

Mr. Harrison, the junior partner of the con¬ 
cern, entered more fully into Matilda’s feelings. 
He well knew how dangerous are the temptations 
which throng the daily walks of the city; and, 


8 


ALFRED. 


though not a very judicious or discriminating 
person, was ready to do what he could in the 
way of watching over Alfred. He did not 
wonder at Matilda’s anxiety; he had an un¬ 
bounded veneration for her good sense and 
power over her brother, and thought in his 
heart, that nothing more could be wanting to 
keep him right. 

The result of Mr. Harrison’s observations, as 
he was happy to inform Matilda, was, that he 
could see nothing in her brother but what was 
perfectly correct. And, to speak the truth, he 
was so charmed with the boy’s manner, and 
took such delight in his fine, open character, that 
there was great danger of his becoming blind to 
his faults, if any should appear, and too indul¬ 
gent to any little liberties he might take. 

A slight incident occurred, which confirmed 
these feelings, and in his mind placed Alfred far 
beyond the x reach of common temptations, and 
gave him great security in the strength of his 
character. He one morning found him eagerly 
watching his approach, evidently for the purpose 
of making some private communication. 

“Well, my lad, what will you have?” said 
he; “ you look as if all the world was upon your 
shoulders.” 

“Look here, Mr. Harrison ; look at this great 
mistake of Mr. Brown’s. When I went to pay 
this bill last night, all this money was returned to 
me. I am afraid to tell him of it. He makes 
such mistakes very often lately ; and he is so 
angry when they are pointed out to him, that the 
young men have determined they will never set 


a sister’s charge. 


9 


him right again. They mean to keep the money, 
sir,” said Alfred, his color rising, and his eyes 
flashing, “ they mean to keep it, they told me so, 
sir, whenever it goes over the bill; and if it falls 
short, they say they shall know how to help that 
without hurting themselves. Do take this, sir, 
and give it back to him, and not let Reynolds 
or any of the others know about it. You will not 
be afraid, shall you ? ” 

“ Afraid! O no; if you are not, there is no 
reason why I should be. Poor Mr. Brown! he 
is failing sadly in some respects, as I cannot any 
longer conceal; and I must take care not to let 
him be cheated in this way. I will settle this 
matter to your satisfaction, and see that you are 
rewarded as you deserve. You are a noble 
fellow, and this deserves to be written in letters 
of gold.” 

Alfred looked rather mortified than pleased at 
this flourishing compliment. “ Why, Mr. Har¬ 
rison,” said he, “ would you have me rewarded 
for not doing a mean, pitiful, spiteful action, 
when there was not the least temptation in the 
world for me to do it? It is no great thing for 
me to be honest, I hope. I thought you had a 
better opinion of me.” 

The spontaneous sentiments of a generous 
heart are often such as would require long study 
and painful self-denial to be adopted by the 
worldly and selfish. Mr. Harrison was much 
struck with this boy’s simplicity and strength of 
mind. He thought it betokened strong principle, 
and that from this time he might be safely left to 
himself. 


10 


ALFRED. 


• Chapter II. 

A SISTER'S TRIAL. 

Several years passed without any material 
occurrence. Alfred continued to be a favorite 
with his employers. He had been constantly 
rising in their confidence, and was in due time 
to become an active partner in the concern. 
He was trusted implicitly, his salary regularly 
increased, and, as far as the world could see, all 
was bright and promising. But his sister’s 
watchful heart was not deceived by any of these 
specious appearances. She “judged not as the 
world judgeth.” She dreaded this relaxed dis¬ 
cipline, this extreme indulgence, this unlimited 
confidence. Some young men can bear it, but 
Matilda knew that her brother was not one of 
these. She knew his heart as far as any one 
could, — better, in some respects, than he did him¬ 
self. She knew that it was not governed by 
religious principles, nor filled with religious affec¬ 
tions. She knew that now, as it had ever been, 
the love of pleasure was his ruling passion, and 
threatened to become an all-engrossing one. She 
saw that nothing but the exceeding love he had 
for her, and the respect which he felt for her 
principles, had prevented him from plunging long 
ago into every variety of dissipation. 

Knowing his feelings so well, Matilda had 
always made it her first object to give their home 
every charm of which it was susceptible. She 


a sister’s trial. 


11 


labored, with the most judicious kindness, and in 
every variety of way which the ingenuity of 
anxious affection could invent, to make it the 
most agreeable spot to him. While he continu¬ 
ed a boy, this was easy; but, as he grew older, it 
became more and more difficult. 

“ This is dull enough,” said he, one evening 
when they were alone together. “ Matilda, do 
you know how excessively stupid our life has 
become? I wonder you can endure it, for it 
must be even more so to you than to me.” 

“ You are quite mistaken. I am entirely 
satisfied and happy. I look forward with delight 
to your coming in the evening, and I must con¬ 
fess, in return for your compliment, that I never 
find you such a dull companion as you seem to 
think I am.” 

“ Pshaw ! you know I did not mean to say 
there was any fault in yourself. But I do want 
variety, and excitement, and noise; some stir 
in life; something to keep me awake, and set my 
spirit boiling.” 

“ I flattered myself it was so. How seldom it 
is that we pass an evening alone, as we are doing 
now. I was just thinking, as you spoke, what 
an unusual pleasure it had become, to have you 
to myself. What can you desire more than you 
have already? what innocent pleasure is there, 
which is not at your command ? ” 

“ Suppose I should sigh for some pleasures 
which my very sober and excellent sister would 
consider not innocent?” 

“ O Alfred, you know very well what the con- 


12 


ALFRED. 


sequence would be; that I should sigh still more 
deeply, and with greater cause.”, 

“ Now there is the theatre; you don’t know 
how I long to go there. I think it is a perfectly 
innocent gratification, a noble pleasure, a most 
rare and delicious enjoyment; and yet I am 
effectually barred from it, because I am such a 
generous fellow I can’t bear to displease you and 
give you pain. I should go every night in the 
season, if it were not for that.” 

“ Your generosity is a good friend to you, then, 
as well as to me. You would soon lose it, if 
you gave yourself up to such selfish pleasures.” 

“O no; I pride myself upon my generosity; I 
should never lose that. But are you sure it is 
not quite selfish in you, to set yourself so strenu? 
ously against what is so delightful and evidently 
harmless 1 ” 

“ It is not harmless, in my opinion. Delightful 
it may be, though I never found it so. In itself, 
the representation of a play, if it is a good one, 
may not be injurious to the actors or the audi¬ 
ence. But the whole scheme and operation of q. 
theatre, as it is conducted here and everywhere, 
is, you know as well as I do, mischievous, if not 
ruinous. I wonder you are not willing to confess 
this; for you must see it.” 

“ I beg your pardon ; I see nothing but enjoy? 
ment in it; and I am afraid your influence will 
not operate much longer in keeping me from this, 
and the innumerable other pleasures which I am 
raving to enjoy, and prevented solely by this 
influence of yours.” 


a sister’s trial. 


13 


“ My dear brother, I can only be thankful that 
it has operated so long. I believe it has been 
your only safeguard, under Heaven ; and I am 
truly grateful that I possess it. But I do wish 
it could be supplied to your mind by something 
stronger.” 

“ My dear sister, your wishes are entirely 
in vain; they are against wind and tide, and 
helmsman and rowers are hard at work in the 
contrary direction ; so that the distance between 
us is widening every day. But, good night; 
I love you as I always did, and, while that grace 
remains, I shall not go far astray. I wish 
I could please you in my thoughts as well as 
actions; but it is impossible, and therefore I 
trust I shall be forgiven. Don’t say any more to 
me ; I cannot bear it. You will only injure your 
own cause, and make me miserable without any 
good effect.” 

Alfred retired, leaving his sister to the most 
painful reflections. “ It is to be all in vain then, 
this watch which I have kept over him ! Will 
not God give me strength to succeed? In my 
own power, I have never trusted, never spoken, 
never acted. Other women have done great 
deeds, — they have fortified citadels, and led arm¬ 
ies, and commanded empires. They have influ¬ 
enced the minds of whole nations, and brought the 
wisest and the haughtiest to their feet. Is it then 
more difficult, more daring, for one to attempt 
to mould a single human heart ? to train one 
wayward spirit into the way it would not go 1 
Yes. I feel that it is, and must be so. O, my 
o 




14 


ALFRED. 


mother! do not think that I have been unfaithful 
to your charge ! Your spirit is near me, I feel 
its hallowed presence ; O plead for me, that my 
labor be not in vain in the Lord.” 


Chapter III. 

TEMPTATIONS. 

Matilda’s acquaintance was not a very nu¬ 
merous, though an exceedingly agreeable one. 
She had taken great pains, in conformity with 
the wishes of her brother, to enlarge it from time 
to time. This the increase of his salary enabled 
her to do without difficulty; though, if she had 
consulted her own feelings merely, she would 
have preferred a more quiet life, and a more 
studious devotion of her time and money to acts 
of benevolence. But the chance of preserving 
her brother’s character pure, by giving him every 
domestic enjoyment, fully outweighed every self¬ 
ish consideration ; and she cheerfully gave her¬ 
self up to the manifold duties of social life. 

Among the most congenial of her associates, 
was a family of Benthams, consisting of several 
sisters and one brother, a young man of fine 
natural endowments, a liberal education, and a 
highly spiritual character. He was brought up 
a merchant; but the deep interest, which he 
subsequently took in religious subjects, induced 



TEMPTATIONS. 


15 


him to renounce his mercantile pursuits and 
devote himself to the ministry. He accordingly 
qualified himself by the necessary theological 
studies, and, at the time he was introduced to 
Matilda, was about commencing the public duties 
of his new profession. 

lie was struck with the retiring graces of her 
character, united, as they were, with a beautiful 
independence of thought and action. He was 
pleased with her person and manners, and, on 
an intimate acquaintance, became convinced that 
a union with one whose tastes were so entirely 
congenial to his own, so devoted to those pur¬ 
suits to which his own life was given, was not 
only necessary to complete his happiness, but 
also to perfect his powers of usefulness, and help 
to keep alive within his heart the brightness 
and holiness of religion. 

It was not long before he communicated these 
sentiments to Matilda, and found, that, although 
a few months only had passed since they met as 
strangers, there was that true sympathy between 
them which does not require time alone for its 
cement. Farther acquaintance served to in¬ 
crease their confidence in each other, and to 
bind closely around them those enduring ties, 
which connect the spirits of the pure for time 
and for eternity. 

Matilda’s first thought, after the excitement 
produced by the rapid developement of these new 
feelings had somewhat subsided, was to interest 
this new friend for her brother. She imagined, 
that, if once they could become friends, there 


16 


ALFRED. 


would be a new and most salutary influence 
exerted over her brother’s mind. Many influ¬ 
ences of quite a different character had, in the 
mean time, been working almost as sudden 
changes in his heart, as had been just wrought 
in her own. 

Reynolds, the head clerk in the establishment 
to which Alfred belonged, had not been in the 
habit of taking much notice of him while he was 
a mere boy, until he happened accidentally to 
meet Matilda. Her beauty made a great im¬ 
pression upon him; he became a constant visitor 
at the house, and of course upon very intimate 
terms with her brother. His family belonged to 
one of the outer circles of fashion, whose posi¬ 
tion, being rather equivocal and apt to be contest¬ 
ed, made them rigorous in their examination of 
candidates for admission to their acquaintance. 
He therefore had never dared invite Alfred to his 
house, lest it should offend against the taste of 
his mother and sisters. Now, however, there was 
to be a strong motive. 

“ Reynolds, my dear fellow,” said Alfred, as 
they one day met for a little social chat, “ I am 
extremely sorry to be obliged to inform you, that 
your chance is becoming a very slender one.” 

“ How do you mean '! ” 

“ I mean that I have been watching the mo¬ 
tions of a certain suspicious person, who has 
been prowling about our premises of late, and I 
am inclined to fear, that his approaches are not 
absolutely discouraged, but rather regarded with 
a more favorable eye than we could wish.” 


TEMPTATIONS. 


17 


Reynolds’s brow grew dark with mortified 
disappointment, which he tried vainly to conceal. 

“ I am really sorry,” continued Alfred ; “ you 
know how much I had set my heart upon your 
success.” 

“ You are very kind,” replied Reynolds, assum¬ 
ing composure; “ but I am by no means sure, that 
I care so much about success in that quarter, as 
you seem to suppose, or that I should not have 
succeeded if I had chosen. You do not remem¬ 
ber, that, although your sister is a very pretty girl, 
and a fine one, considering her advantages, she 
is by no means the only marketable article in the 
city. You are new in the ranks of fashion; you 
have never seen the cargoes of beauty nightly 
set up for sale.” 

“ I wish I could. New ? I am not in the ranks 
at all. I wish I were. I wish I could work my 
way into those charmed circles, all ice to those 
without, all melting sunshine to the happy being 
who is admitted within them.” 

“ Well, it is a pity you should sigh your soul 
away for what is not so very desirable after all 
to one accustomed to it as I am. To show you 
that I bear no malice, I offer to* be your pass¬ 
port. Let me have the honor of ushering you 
into the great world. Come with me to my sis¬ 
ter’s this evening. I have been afraid to make 
this offer before; I thought it might seem like 
urging a suit I was by no means sure of— that 
I ” — Reynolds was in a sad dilemma. He was 
far from desiring to offend Alfred at this time ; 
yet he was anxious to make him believe, that he 


% 


18 ^ ALFRED. 

was idiher glad than otherwise to be relieved of 
his attentions to his sister. 

“ You understand me;” — he said at last, as 
people often do, who labor under certain obscu¬ 
rities of thought; and Alfred was too full of his 
own ideas to care whether he understood or not. 
His point was gained. 

Once admitted into fashionable circles, success 
was certain, and Reynolds found that he had 
unwittingly raised up a formidable rival. 

Alfred’s manners were peculiarly winning and 
graceful, and there was a freedom and spirited 
ease in his conversation, that made him very 
attractive, even to those who were the best judges 
of men and things. He was admired, caressed, 
flattered, courted ; admitted everywhere, to places 
where his pioneer would never have dreamed of 
entering. It was as much as his brain could 
endure, this fulfilment of his wildest hopes, the 
realization of his airiest and most presumptuous 
dreams. 

For a time he was perfectly happy. Sudden 
success intoxicated him, and in its first bewilder¬ 
ment there was nothing left to wish for. Then 
' came satiety. Then the need of stronger and 
still stronger stimulants. Then followed, in nat¬ 
ural succession, distaste for his ordinary occupa¬ 
tions and neglect of them. His nature seemed 
to undergo a disastrous change. He became 
imperious and domineering towards his compan¬ 
ions and inferiors, sullen and contemptuous to his 
employers. Even towards his sister there were 
some slight but most painful changes in the 
tenderness and deference of his manners. 


TEMPTATIONS. 


19 

These consequences are so natural, and may 
be so easily foreseen, that one would be gladly 
spared the pain of tracing them. Principle had 
never restrained him, as we have seen; and it had 
no strength to do it now. He had hitherto been 
kept free from vice solely through the great 
atfection which he felt for his sister, and the 
commanding influence that she possessed over 
his mind. Now all restraint was broken through, 
all bonds loosed. He cannot be said to have been 
led into temptation ; he strode boldly and triumph¬ 
antly on, thinking of nothing, caring for nothing, 
but his own immediate self-gratification. 

He became intimate with a set of gay, unprin¬ 
cipled young men, among whom was his friend 
Reynolds, who had given the first impetus to his 
career, had subsequently been neglected by him, 
and now joined him with the determined malig¬ 
nity of a weak mind to revenge himself upon the 
sister, by effecting, as far as lay in his power, the 
ruin of the brother. These soon looked to him 
as their leader. He marched them boldly on, 
furnishing their sickly appetites with ingenious 
inventions in vice, which their dull souls could 
never have devised. Here we must leave him. 


20 


ALFRED. 


Chapter IV. 

A CRISIS. 

“ Thou art far from the haven, and tempest-tossed j 
Hear the cry of the Pilot, or thou art lost.” 


A few months after the time of his engage¬ 
ment to Matilda, Mr. Bentham departed to take 
charge for a time of a parish in a distant part of 
the country. Matilda, thus left once more to her 
old trains of thought, became most painfully 
sensible of her brother’s derelictions. She traced 
him in his downward path with that heart-rending 
anxiety, which those only can feel whose hopes 
are looking forward to eternity. 

It was not, that by little and little this cherished 
brother withdrew his portion of support, now very 
considerable, from the family. It was not, that 
he left her night after night in solitude, to rake 
over the embers, and betake herself to her cham¬ 
ber without one word of sympathy or kindness. 
It was not even, that he daily neglected more and 
more to offer those thousand delicate and touch¬ 
ing proofs of confidence and true love, which he 
had from boyhood been in the constant habit of 
bestowing, and which had served to bind her so 
strongly to him. Alas, these evils she could have 
borne cheerfully. Her trials struck deeper into 
the soul. Her mind passed over the ominous 
present, and dwelt upon the almost hopeless fu¬ 
ture,— all that might be experienced and suffered 
in this life, all that must be beyond. This har- 


A CRISIS. 


21 


rowing thought clung to her through the night, 
and pursued her during the painful toils of the 
day. 

She neglected no opportunity of conversing 
freely with her brother upon these feelings, press¬ 
ing strongly upon him the duty and need of re¬ 
pentance ; but he laughed at her severe notions, 
and though he sometimes listened patiently, it 
was without the least design of profiting by her 
admonitions. 

“ O do not urge me to repent, Matilda ! That 
is for the future. Consider how young I am. 
The dying hour is soon enough to repent. Re¬ 
pentance! A child’s word. The old woman’s 
senseless babble, it does not become your beau¬ 
tiful lips. It may be a good word for the 
preacher, and that is what has given it such 
special value in your eyes just now, Matilda. 
But it is no word for me. Do but consider. A 
creature young, gay, happy; full of life, and 
hope, and spirit; glowing with generous pleas¬ 
ure, just tasting, for the first time, the delicious 
offerings of the world, is it for me to reject, for 
me to despise, renounce, and cast them from 
me? O no; you cannot be serious. You do not 
expect that I should do any thing so manifestly 
absurd. It is for the old, — the unhappy, — the 
stupid, — the incapacitated, to repent. Tame, 
spiritless animals, who have no longer the heart 
to ‘join in the revel, the laugh, and the glee,’ may 
go to their prayers, and their church, and their 
alms-doing. I am occupied in a far more agree¬ 
able manner. Let me alone.” 


22 


ALFRED. 


“ * Ephraim is ’ indeed ‘ joined to his idols/ ” 
thought Matilda. She had done her utmost to 
stem the torrent of evil, which was sweeping away 
her own and her brother’s happiness. Her exer¬ 
tions were of no avail. She could set up no bar¬ 
rier against that torrent. She could not draw it 
off, she could but sit down and await patiently 
the turning of the tide. She was thankful to rest 
her full heart upon God’s assurances of help in 
time of trouble. It was to him alone she could 
look for aid in that almost miraculous work, the 
reformation of a sinner. 

Is it possible for one to arrest his own progress 
in the rapid downward course, in the moral any 
more than in the natural world ? Must there not 
be some power from without to aid? In his own 
good time God sends this power; and it comes to 
us often in the shape of retribution, the natural 
and present consequences of our deeds. Then, 
if the soul awakes to a consciousness of its own 
peril and wants, there will be hope. 

Two years of increasing neglect of business on 
the part of Alfred, had tried to the utmost the 
patience and kindness of his employers. They 
frequently represented to him the consequences 
of his ill conduct, threatened him with the re¬ 
duction of his salary, and various other measures 
they should be obliged to pursue. But he treated 
the whole matter with indifference or haughti¬ 
ness. This could not continue; the crisis must 
come at last, and Matilda looked forward to it 
almost with eagerness. 


A CRISIS. 


23 


The following note was brought in to her one 
morning, as she was sitting at a solitary breakfast. 

“ Matilda, I have gone, I hardly know where 
or why. Do not be alarmed ; I am not a villain. 
I thank God, I have stopped short of the com¬ 
mission of a crime, which would have degraded 
and ruined me past redemption. I shudder to 
think of the temptation I have escaped ; — it 
might have been my destruction, but I have over¬ 
come it. O, my sister, what a life I have been 
leading ! All the pleasure I once had in it is 
destroyed, now that I find to what it would have 
reduced me ! And yet I cannot stop. I am 
hurried on; and there is no knowing after all, but 
at some unlooked-for time I shall fall. 

“ I go to New York. Nobody knows me there. 
T cannot go without first telling you; for I know 
how you would suffer to be left in any uncertain¬ 
ty about me. You might suppose that something 
worse than the reality had befallen me. Fare¬ 
well ! You will think of me, I know. Do write 
to me, it will be a comfort in my exile. 

“ Alfred.” 

The receipt of this vague and most unsatis¬ 
factory intelligence filled Matilda’s mind with 
painful forebodings. She resolved, as soon as 
she could discover whether he had actually gone, 
to follow him, and make one more attempt to 
bring him back, not to her home and affections 
only, but to virtue and happiness. She sent im¬ 
mediately for Reynolds, and endeavored to gain 
from him some farther information. Reynolds 


24 


ALFRED. 


affected to know nothing of him or his affairs. 
She next applied to the other partners, and was 
told merely that Alfred had been dismissed from 
their employment the day before, for incorrigible 
misdemeanors. They had avoided mentioning 
the subject to any one, for it was particularly 
painful, and they could not summon courage to 
announce it to Matilda. 

She retired to her room late in the evening, 
disheartened and almost in despair. She was 
surprised by a gentle knock at the door, and on 
opening it her brother appeared before her, 
wrapped in his cloak, with a small valise in his 
hand. 

“ I could not go after all, dear Matilda, with¬ 
out coming to bid you good bye; and I came 
at night because I do not want the family to 
know it.” 

“ I am most thankful to see you. I have been 
in great distress ever since I received your note 
this morning, and I intended, as soon as I could 
find out where you were, to go in pursuit of you. 
Alfred, what have X done that you should with¬ 
draw your confidence from me? You know that, 
ever since you were born, I have watched and 
tended you as if you had been my child. You 
have never complained of it; and yet you were 
now going to leave me without a word of explan¬ 
ation.” 

“ You are mistaken; that is just what I am 
here for to-night. I should have left Boston 
before daylight this morning, but that I could 
not resolve to go without opening my whole 


A CRISIS. 


25 


heart to you. And yet I am — not afraid exactly, 
but unwilling to tell you all, you will be so 
shocked.” 

“ That is of little consequence compared to 
what I should feel if you left me in suspense.” 

“ Then I will tell you all. I am upon the very 
verge of ruin. I have been idling away my time, 
and wasting my money, as you well know, for 
these two years past. I have disgraced myself 
with the firm, and they have discharged me. I 
have borrowed money till I have no credit left. I 
have gambled away my last shilling, and yester¬ 
day I was wrought up to such a pitch of desper¬ 
ation, that I was on the point of—I was detected 
in the very moment — O, I cannot go any far¬ 
ther !— do not make me confess my degrada¬ 
tion ! ” He covered his face with his hands, and 
sobbed aloud. 

“ You were on the point of committing rob¬ 
bery ! do not fear to tell me. If it will be any 
comfort to you, Alfred, I can assure you that this 
last bad act does not startle me as you expected 
I am truly rejoiced that you are spared this ad¬ 
ditional weight upon your conscience. It is 
sufficiently laden already. But this is no time 
for reproaches or vain regrets. I want now only 
to ask you what are your plans, your prospects, 
your object, in going to New York.” 

“ Matilda ! I do not understand you. How is 
it possible, that you should not be more troubled 
at the thought of my doing such a deed ? I ex¬ 
pected you would be overwhelmed. I thought 
my doing it would kill you ; and it was this that 
3 


26 


ALFRED. 


stopped me, when I was about to lay my hand on 
what would have enriched — ” 

“ Stop ! do not speak of riches. O Alfred! 
how much you mistake me, if you think it is in¬ 
sensibility to your guilt that makes me calm. It 
is, that my feelings have been exhausted in antici¬ 
pation of this. I have looked forward to just 
such an event, as the certain conclusion of the 
course you have been pursuing. 1 am relieved 
that it has not taken place, but it is only a partial 
relief. It gives me no confidence for the future. 
Remember, Alfred, though this act would have 
been more disgraceful in the world’s opinion, 
and would have rendered you amenable to the 
laws, it is not more sinful in the eye of God, than 
the habits of profligate dissipation to which'you 
had before abandoned yourself.” 

“ But how could you have borne the disgrace, 
Matilda ? ” 

“You are already disgraced. Your employers 
have cast you off; you are looked down upon 
by those who once had high hopes of you ; you 
are pitied and despised even by your profligate 
companions, as the unsuccessful always are. 
You are penniless, and therefore they will avoid 
you. You have no real friend in this world ex¬ 
cept myself. And in the other ! O, my brother, 
have you made a friend there? You are thrown 
out of employment; and now you are going to 
a large, crowded, overgrown city, where needy, 
unprincipled men like yourself can congregate 
together unmolested, and set the laws of God and 
man at defiance. There is no doubt you can 


A CRISIS. 


27 


find employment there. You will go; and, trust 
my words, it will be your utter ruin, — soul and 
body, — for this world and the next.” 

“ O sister — sister ! do not aggravate my feel¬ 
ings. I am wretched enough. You are absolute¬ 
ly cruel ! I know not which way to turn, or 
what to do! ” He burst into tears afresh, and 
Matilda, throwing herself upon his neck, wept 
with him. 

“ O tell me, my only friend, what I ought to 
do ! I know I have been doing wrong. I have 
gone on for a long time worse and worse; long 
before you suspected me ; and when you did first 
suspect me, I was too proud to tell you all. I 
concealed what I could, and I tried to prevent 
you from thinking that your words had any effect 
upon me. But they had. I could not shut them 
out of my heart, though they were in exact op¬ 
position to all my feelings. And yet they wrought 
just the wrong effect. Although what you said 
touched me to the quick, and I felt that you had 
the best intentions in saying it, no object but my 
good, it only provoked me to go still farther and 
farther on. I could not bear to feel that I was 
influenced by a woman. I felt ashamed of the 
shackles that bound me to you, instead of glorying 
in them as I ought. They are all that have ever 
kept me from destruction. And you were so 
kind withal! You never taunted or reproved 
me. When your language was severe, it was 
against my faults, not against me.” 

“ And did you never, in all that time, reflect 
that you were sinning against God ? Did it 


28 


ALFRED. 


never occur to you, how you were steeping your 
soul in guilt, putting it in constant and awful 
peril, by your rebellion against your final Judge ? ” 

“ O yes, I often had such thoughts; but I drove 
them out, I would not allow them a moment’s 
resting-place. I tried sometimes to laugh them 
off, but that would not do. I had been too faith¬ 
fully taught to dare so much. I could not. My 
companions did. They had no shame, no re¬ 
morse about any thing; and though I could 
go farther, and do more atrocious things than 
they, yet I do not believe they ever suffered 
so much compunction. Pleasure has been the 
absorbing interest of my life. I must have that, 
let the consequences be even more dreadful than 
my fears.” 

“ O, how I have tried to awaken you from this 
fearful indifference ! If I could only have known 
how, I am sure I would have used words that 
might, rouse the dead ! ” 

“ I could not listen to them. No words would 
have produced any effect while my mind was in 
such a state. Yours did all that was possible. 
It is not possible that they should have melted 
flint. But, Matilda, now that you know all, what 
shall I do? I must go away somewhere. I care 
not where, — not to New York, if you think I had 
better not. But here I cannot stay. I am dis¬ 
graced, and I cannot meet the eyes of those 
who once respected me.” 

“ How have you already met them, when you 
deserved their respect even less than you do now ? 
That is not what you are to consider. It is 


A CRISIS. 


29 


hard, I know it must be, to bear disgrace. You 
have only to remember that it is just retribution. 
But there is a greater trial; the reproaches of 
your own conscience, which you cannot stifle. 
These must follow you wherever you go. You 
cannot rid yourself of them. You may call upon 
the rock§ and hills to conceal your shame, but it 
will be vain. It is of little consequence that 
men look coldly upon you, or that ridicule and 
obloquy are heaped on you by the unthinking 
and irreligious. How can you care for it, while 
the Omniscient eye is searching into your pol¬ 
luted heart! O brother, you have cause indeed 
to fear.” 

“ Tell me, then, I repeat, tell me what I shall 
do!” 

“ There is one thing to be done, and but one, 
if you are earnest in asking. You must re¬ 
pent.” 

“Matilda, I do repent — O most sincerely. 
I have gone through the whole catalogue of vice, 
I have loved it in every form, but now it seems 
to me nauseous and loathsome. I feel that 1 can 
never be guilty in the same way again.” 

“ Pray that you never may. But trust not your 
own strength. You resolve upon taking the 
first step towards reformation. Take it thought¬ 
fully and religiously, and you may yet be restored 
to us. I am ready to do any thing for you, noth¬ 
ing will be a sacrifice, on that sole condition. 
Repent; and by that I do not mean that you 
should be merely sorry for your sins; that is but 
the smallest part of your duty; you must alter 


30 


ALFRED. 


your whole course of life, abstain from every ap¬ 
pearance of evil, renounce all your wretched com¬ 
panions, begin life anew.” 

“ Can I do this ? How shall I ever be able to 
do it ? I do feel as if it might be the best thing 
for me.” 

“It is the only thing. This is the first mo¬ 
ment of hope, I have had for you, Alfred, for 
years. Do not disappoint me. I feared to have 
found you hardened and impenitent. I thank 
God that it is not so. Only give yourself time 
for reflection. Think over your past life. Dwell 
upon scenes of past misconduct, till you make 
them appear in the true light, — hateful, hideous. 
Look forward to the future. Consider within 
yourself whether you can give up this life of sin 
which has been so pleasant, and devote yourself 
to the love of God and the cultivation of the 
Christian character. Try whether you can 
renounce the world with its allurements, its 
poisonous fascinations, its stinging curses, and set 
yourself seriously to win the hope of heaven by 
the thorny way of repentance. You have much 
to give up which, worthless as it is, I know you 
value. See if you are able to do it with a com 
trite spirit and in a cheerful mind.” 

“ I cannot answer for my feelings; ” said 
Alfred, despondingly; “ I know not whether I 
have the power even to reflect. I can do what¬ 
ever you think right and best. I will remain 
here if you think I ought; I will go or stay, — 
give up or retain just what you please; but I can- 


PLANS AND PURPOSES. 31 

not promise to think and feel at once exactly as 
you would have me.” 

“ I do not ask that you should. All I wish for 
the present, you have promised ; — to do what is 
right. I can rest cheerfully, happily, upon that; 
and to-morrow we will consider what it is right 
you should do.” 


Chapter V. 

PLANS AND PURPOSES. 

“ Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine 
own understanding. 

Exhausted by the agitating events of the two 
preceding days, and the long conversation of the 
night, as well as by many previous vigils of an¬ 
other character, Alfred soon sank into a deep 
and undisturbed slumber. He awoke in the 
morning refreshed in body, and in a somewhat 
renovated state of mind. He had unburdened 
his heart to his sister, and was not, therefore, 
weighed down with the painful consciousness of 
concealed guilt. He had stopped jshort of base 
crime, and had on his awakened, but still torpid 
conscience, only what seemed a very endurable 
load. So little perception had he of the guilt 
and peril of a state of soul at enmity with God. 

He could not help building bright hopes upon 
the future. He knew what noble efforts his 



32 


ALFRED. 


sister was : capable of making; and though he 
could not see how, he felt that in some way all 
would soon be right. “ Woman’s ingenuity ! 
who ever knew that to fail? My debts! All, 
that is a bad business, I don’t see clearly how 
that is to come out; but Matilda has such a 
way! She will know how to manage. Excel¬ 
lent, glorious creature ! how could I have thought 
of leaving her? I should have been miserable. 
Now there is nothing which I am not willing to 
resign into her hands.” 

These thoughts produced an exhilaration of 
feeling which seemed unnatural to Matilda. It 
disappointed and made her uneasy. It disturbed 
her enlightened conscience to see smiles upon 
his face, when she felt that he ought to be over¬ 
whelmed with sorrow and compunction. 

“ Do not blame me, dear sister,” he said, 
reading her feelings in her manner, “ for appear¬ 
ing so gay. The truth is, I have not been so 
happy, so truly at ease in my mind, for an age. 
Do consider what a state I have been in ; con¬ 
scious of guilt; fearful of discovery; dreading 
the sight and hating the company of the good ! 
How could I but be wretched, except just while 
I was revelling in mad pleasures ? Now I have 
unveiled my whole worthless heart to you, and 
I feel easier. I can look up; and though I 
know I have been a sad fellow, yet I have not 
been worse than many others, who have done 
well in the end. I think I can bear a little mor¬ 
tification, and be the better for it. Then the 
hope of returning to respectability and innocence 


PLANS AND PURPOSES. 


33 


is very comforting. Indeed, I cannot help feel¬ 
ing very happy, and I do beg you not to think 
the worse of me for it.” 

“ I shall never think the worse of you for such 
perfect candor, depend upon it. Let me be 
equally open with you. Your feelings are still 
very far from right, but it is necessary to leave 
the consideration of them for the present. We 
have much business before us, that must be done 
immediately. Your debts are to be considered. 
You must let me know their amount, and we will 
see whether the sale of the house will cover 
them.” 

“ The sale of the house ! I can never consent 
to that! What will become of you ? ” 

“ We will take cheap lodgings for the present, 
and I can support myself by needle-work. I 
have many real friends, and I am sure they will 
assist me. Then, for yourself, we will go to 
Brown and Harrison and state the whole case 
plainly to them. They are friends; kind, for¬ 
bearing people; we have nothing to fear from 
them. You can make your own offers; and if 
they choose to accept your services after what 
has passed, on condition that you commence with 
an entirely new character, or rather your own 
old one, — very well, your course is plain; you 
have only to return to them with humility and 
gratitude. But if they should refuse you, you 
ought to be prepared for this; they will at least 
recommend something to you, and put you in the 
way of finding some business that will suit you.” 

“ What a mean, selfish, despicable wretch I 


34 


ALFRED. 


have been!” exclaimed Alfred, after a pause, 
when his sister had finished. “ How blind ! how 
stupid, how perfectly reckless! What else could 
I have expected ? and yet how much worse this 
is, than I feared. The whole pleasure and com¬ 
fort of our lives is destroyed; I have turned 
you out of the house and made you a beggar! 
You ! who have been more than a mother to me, 
and the only person I ever really loved. And all 
for what ? What is there in the life I have led, 
to make up for the sacrifice ? ” 

“ Such are the inevitable consequences of a 
life spent in vice ; — ruin to the delinquent, and 
misery to all concerned. Be thankful that you 
were arrested before it was quite too late.” 

After their plans were sufficiently matured, 
they proceeded to put them in execution. Prop¬ 
erty had risen so much in value in the part of the 
city where their house was situated, that it sold 
exceedingly well. Alfred was enabled, with the 
proceeds, to liquidate his debts, and place a 
surplus in his sister’s hands. They removed 
into small, plain rooms, where Matilda found im¬ 
mediate and constant employment. The appli¬ 
cation to Messrs. Brown and Harrison was not 
so successful. It was impossible for them to re¬ 
ceive back the delinquent upon his old footing. 
His place had been already supplied. The ut¬ 
most they could offer was an inferior place, with 
a small salary, and nothing in prospect. Alfred 
could not think of accepting this. Neither his 
pride nor his poverty would permit. He con¬ 
sulted with them on his plans, but they were 


PLANS AND PURPOSES. 


35 


cautious in recommending any thing. They said, 
it would take long to reestablish a character 
for sobriety and industry; which, once lost, was 
as good as gone for ever. His best chance 
would be to accept their offer, which would show 
that his intentions were sincere, and leave time 
to do the rest.. If it should then appear that 
his reformation was thorough, there would be no 
difficulty in procuring something more advan¬ 
tageous. Alfred thought best, however, to make 
some farther attempts to obtain at once a more 
eligible situation; so they parted. Not, how¬ 
ever, until the gentlemen had expressed, with 
great warmth, their pleasure in his good deter¬ 
minations, their hope that he would continue 
steadfast in them, and their wish that it might 
be in their power to be of some service to him. 

Several days were now passed in the most 
wearisome and discouraging kind of labor,— un- 
successful applications. As might have been 
expected, all were unwilling to trust one who 
had just been so notoriously given over to idle¬ 
ness and immersed in licentious pleasures. Al¬ 
fred’s former character, though well known, made 
little difference in the estimation of those who 
knew the world. Few believe in promises of re¬ 
formation. All looked with doubt and severe 
scrutiny upon the unfortunate applicant. He 
bore these repeated mortifications with as much 
firmness as could be expected from one to whom 
such a state of things was new. He was perfect¬ 
ly frank in his communications; he extenuated 
nothing, — urged no claims, — made no profes- 


36 


ALFRED. 


sions. He said he had no right to expect the 
confidence of those who had no means of judging 
of his sincerity. But if they should trust him, 
he felt sure they would not be disappointed. 

He returned to his lodgings, fatigued and com¬ 
pletely discouraged, and laid his proceedings, as 
usual, before his sister. “ Thus you see there is 
absolutely nothing left for me, but to go back to 
Brown and Harrison and take up with their offer. 
It will be a miserable pittance, hardly enough to 
keep soul and body from separating; but I sup¬ 
pose I ought not to complain. 5 ’ 

“ Certainly not. It is as much as you have 
any right to expect, and more than I dared hope. 
It is a part of the discipline you have now to un¬ 
dergo, for which you ought to be grateful. Is it 
not evidently best that you should be, for the 
present at least, deprived of the possibility of re¬ 
turning to your old habits? 55 

“ I do not feel the need of this kind of restric¬ 
tion, I must confess. I am so determined in my 
own mind, that I believe the want of money or 
a profusion of it would make no difference in my 
conduct. But I cannot see you deprived of your 
usual comforts, knowing that it has been through 
my means, and not writhe under the impossibility 
of doing any thing to help it. 55 

“ Do not afflict yourself about me, any more 
than enough to do you good. These little priva¬ 
tions are nothing to me, you know. I am very 
comfortable here; I have plenty of employment 
which was always necessary to my happiness ; 
and I never had the trouble of any of that foolish 


PLANS AND PURPOSES. 


37 


pride, which might now have made me unhappy 
at the thought of falling in the world. And 
above all, I could bear worse evils than poverty, 
or any that I have yet known, while I can see 
.you in so hopeful a frame of mind.” 

“Far enough from hope!” sighed Alfred. 

“ Far enough from worldly hopes, I know you 
are. But the step you have taken towards re¬ 
formation gives me the most delightful hopes 
for your future character. Your state of mind 
is an encouraging one. My only fear is, that 
you will feel as if you had already done enough, 
as if this first step was all-sufficient. You 
ought to realize, that though a difficult, an 
all-important one, and one which is too seldom 
taken, still it is but one, a single step; and 
that it will require the whole strength of your 
mind, and other strength besides your own, to 
follow it up perseveringly, so that it shall be 
of any avail.” 

“ O yes, I know that. I foresee difficulties 
enough in all conscience; enough to frighten a 
coward. But I am no coward; I never have been 
one, and now that I have resolved upon this, it 
is not a trifle that shall turn me back. I am not 
to be deterred by all the persuasion or ridicule 
which I know I shall have to bear. You cannot 
conceive what sport is made already of my con¬ 
version. I feel it now, tingling in my ears. I 
am the laughing-stock, the by-word, of my whole 
gang of confederates.” 

“But you cannot bear to be laughed at!” 

“ I think I can. When I once determine on a 

4 


38 


ALFRED. 


thing, and feel that it is right, and have a wish 
to do it, ridicule has no effect on me. I think I 
can put a stop to this. I am not afraid of it, nor 
do I believe I shall be. I cannot tell till I am 
tried, to be sure. But I believe my good friends 
will find it no easy matter to come round me in 
any way.” 

“ Do not be too confident. You might find 
less difficulty in your opposition to them, if they 
had not a still powerful advocate in the lurking 
weakness of your own heart.” 

“ That is the worst of it; and I don’t so well 
know how to manage myself as I do them. 
There I must look to you. You have begun 
with me, and you must go on. It will never 
do for you to leave me to myself.” 

“How little can I—can any woman — any 
human being—do for you'! I can but suggest; 
you must follow out the suggestions for yourself, 
and try if they are worth acting upon. It is 
not on an arm of flesh you are to lean. Go to 
the Rock of Ages! Lay your heart open to 
your God as faithfully as you have done to me, 
and you will find that unfailing support which 
you absolutely need. You cannot advance a step 
without it. Trust to your own strength or mine, 
and you will fall, — you cannot stand a moment. 
Go to Him, then, — like a child, freely, confi¬ 
dently, lay your whole soul open before him. 
Keep back nothing; neither your pride, nor your 
self-sufficiency, nor your indifference to him, nor 
your idolatry of the world, — nor your sensuality, 
your low propensities, your gross practices, your 


PLANS AND PURPOSES. 


39 


insensibility to every thing higher; — lay them all 
before your Father as before a friend, and im¬ 
plore his forgiveness and his aid. Without doing 
this, how can you conceive of the possibility of 
working that radical change in your own charac¬ 
ter, that thorough renovation of all your thoughts, 
tastes, feelings, habits, which is absolutely es¬ 
sential ? How can you imagine yourself willing 
to give up those pleasures, which have been the 
object, the delight of your life for years, absorbing 
every interest, chaining every affection, — how 
can you think to teach your heart to forego all 
these, unless it be in God’s strength ? What but 
the divine influence working within your mind, 
cobperating with your own efforts, can produce 
such a change and make it permanent ? You 
may make such resolutions, and they will seem 
wondrous strong; but the first temptation will 
level them with the ground, unless they are form¬ 
ed upon a surer foundation than your own weak 
purposing. The light of God’s truth, illuminat¬ 
ing the dark places of your mind, will show to 
you the utter worthlessness of your whole former 
life ; the beauty, the safety, the glorious freedom 
of a different one; — and his strength alone will 
give you the power to renounce the one, and 
enter upon and pursue the other.” 

“ But how am I to obtain this light, and this 
supernatural assistance? O Matilda, how am I 
even to wish to obtain them ? ” 

“ ‘ Ask, and ye shall receive.’ Prayer is the 
only means given us by which we may approach 
the Father, and let him know the secret of our 


40 


ALFRED. 


wants. Prayer to this Omnipresent Being creates 
within us love to him, and trust in him. We 
cannot love him whom we dare not approach. 
It is only by abandoning ourselves humbly and 
wholly to him, prostrating our whole souls at 
his footstool, confessing to him every thought 
of sin, every deed of foolishness, that we can 
feel him to be our loving Father, who will as¬ 
suredly hear and bless us. ‘ Awake, thou that 
sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ 
shall give thee light.’ ” 

“ Is it possible that I can ever do this! how 
can 1? proud, presumptuous wretch that I have 
been ! how can I become a humble, self-immo¬ 
lating supplicant ? I, a devout, self-denying 
Christian ! Is there not mockery in the very 
words? Matilda, I am not a coward, but this 
I dare not attempt. You little know how unfit 
I am for it.” 

“ Alfred,” said Matilda, laying her hand on 
his arm, and arresting him as he was about 
leaving the room, “ do you forget, that you have 
the Bible ? do you forget all that you have read 
there of mercy and encouragement ? do you for¬ 
get, that there is the voice of the great Teacher 
and Saviour ? Go to it anew; you will find 
there, and there only, an answer to all your 
questions, and a perfect direction for your 
course.” 


CONSCIENCE. 


41 


Chapter VI. 

CONSCIENCE. 

t( Self-rage for breach of gracious laws. 

The worm of conscience which still gnaws, — 
Confusion, trembling, terror, shame, 

And fierce self-blame.” 

Alfred retired to his chamber, more disheart¬ 
ened than he had ever yet been. “ What,” said 
he, as he paced his narrow room, “ must it 
come to this! Give up every thing! all that 
makes life to be happiness ! Give up all excite¬ 
ment, all gayety ! My companions, chosen and 
congenial! The theatre! Never listen more 
to the delicious rattle of dice, or inhale the 
bewitching fumes of generous wine ! No ! I 
must immure myself in this wretched, stifled 
hole, with a demure sister, and talk soberly, and 
keep much at home, and go to church regularly ! 
I must listen to prayers, and sermons, and dull 
lectures; — I must drudge in the Sunday School, 
— I must plod round among the poor ! And all 
for what? — Because I have been an idle, drunk¬ 
en, good-for-nothing rascal! because I have spent 
my own and my sister’s hard-earned money, al¬ 
most ruined my constitution and my prospects in 
this life by courses too bad to be named, though 
they were the whole charm of my existence! 
How it scorches me to look back upon it! ‘Go 
over your whole life,’ she said, ‘ and behold it in 
its true light.’ I cannot. It is too hateful, too 
4 * 


42 


ALFRED. 


hideous ! I have been a thoughtless, wicked 
wretch, that is certain ! And there is the ‘ fear¬ 
ful looking-for of judgment! ’ They say there 
is no such place as hell. There ought to be for 
such as I and some others I could name! And 
then there is the loss of heaven ! And what 
would that be to such as I am ? An eternal 
sabbath ! O who could endure — What is heav¬ 
en l What is a future life 1 Is there such a 
state ? Is it worth while to give up every thing 
joyous here for that uncertain hereafter ? And 
yet, dreamer ! what have I to give up ! Why, it 
is altogether probable that this mighty sacrifice, 
which I am about to make, and which causes 
me such bitter regret, is the giving up of debt, 
disease, degradation, imprisonment, theft, bur¬ 
glary, murder, suicide, the gallows! Precious 
assemblage ! no wonder I am loath to part com¬ 
pany with you ! And I exchange them for in¬ 
dustry, sobriety, the respect of the wise and 
good, a sister’s confidence and happiness, my 
own peace of mind, a contented, useful life, and 
no fear of the future. I shall have no happi¬ 
ness, but then I shall be saved from misery. I 
can never enjoy any thing more in this world, 
but I shall rid myself of some odious sufferings. 
I shall preserve my miserable, decaying body, 
and it may be my perishing soul ! Is not that 
worth while ? 

“ This soul! what is it, which I have been 
jeoparding 1 It is myself, that part of me which 
is to live for ever, while the body, which I have 
pampered and indulged in all its low desires, is 


CONSCIENCE. 


43 


soon, no one can tell me when, to be cut down 
and thrown away, and become food for worms ! 
The soul survives ; and what is to be the condi¬ 
tion of that through those countless ages, which 
are to come after death ? What a question! 
the only one to which it seems as if a man in 
his senses would care to have an answer. I 
know how much it depends upon myself. God 
has given me this soul, with ample instructions 
how to use it, how to ensure its safety, how to 
fit it for the inheritance of his promises. I could 
have made it pure and glorious; — instead, I have 
debased and corrupted it. I have placed it in 
subservience to the body, — raised the brute 
above the angel ! ‘ And O, dreadful, terrific 
thought! God is looking on ! He sees me ! 
He has watched my thoughts: he has seen me 
plunging deeper and deeper into this gulf, which 
he taught me would lead to misery. I knew it, 
yet I persisted. I could not give up a life of 
enticing pleasures in obedience to him who 
gave the capacity to enjoy ; — the faculties — I 
have abused ; the means — I have wasted ! O, 
what depth of sin ! It is sin in which I have 
been grovelling; and in sin, if I go on, I shall 
die. And then comes — retribution ! Punish¬ 
ment for disobedience, rebellion against God f 
God, my Father ! God, the Giver! God, the All- 
seeing — Almighty — All-knowing ! O God, for¬ 
give ! Father, I have sinned before heaven and 
in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called 
thy son! ” 

The flood-gates were now effectually opened. 


44 


ALFRED. 


The guilt-stricken wretch poured out the whole 
torrent of self-accusation, self-condemnation, deep, 
bitter sorrow, into the bosom of the Father. 
Floods of penitential tears, were succeeded by 
sincere prayers for divine aid and guidance and 
pardon, — the first he had offered for years. He 
had long lived in the neglect of all religious du¬ 
ties, though educated in strict adherence to them. 
He now felt their need; the truest compunction 
for the sin of neglecting them. Repentance as¬ 
sumed new features with every moment of re¬ 
flection. When his heart was first touched, he 
was ready to rejoice that he had been saved from 
the commission of gross vice. But on the return 
of right reason and sober thought, he felt how 
slight were his grounds of self-congratulation. 
There was enough in his own guilty life, enough 
in his cold, heartless disregard of all the com¬ 
mands of the only Being who has any right over 
.us, to appal the boldest heart. He had gone no 
farther than many of his companions, who were 
still received into the best society, and, their 
vices being known, were yet treated with regard, 
and — must we not speak the truth? — in this 
Christian land, were still eagerly sought and fa¬ 
vored as companions, by those who ought to set 
the example of purity and severity in their re¬ 
quisitions of others, if not in their own conduct. 

All this Alfred felt, for it is, alas, no exag¬ 
geration. But conscience, now awake, warned 
him, that God judges not as the world judges. 

It must not be supposed that this thorough 
awakening produced at once a radical change 


CONSCIENCE. 


45 


in the principles and habits of our young friend. 
The work of reformation is a long, a laborious, 
and a most discouraging task. For one step in 
advance, many are inadvertently taken back¬ 
ward. “ As easily might a science be mastered 
by one struggle of thought, as sin be conquered 
by a spasm of remorse.” 

Time passed on, and each day found him still 
beginning, as it were, this most toilsome ascent. 
The spirit indeed was willing, but the flesh weak. 
It was easy to give up certain indulgences, — 
not very difficult to forego certain pleasures. 
But it was not easy to keep the heart right and 
the thoughts free from sin. It was easy to work 
the soul occasionally into a religious fervor, — 
comparatively easy to establish new, and right, 
and pure principles; but to break up the strong¬ 
holds of habit in the mind, — there was the dif¬ 
ficulty. Character is made up of habits; and 
when they have been many years forming in a 
particular direction, it is a work of no small 
magnitude to change their course, to hew out 
new channels for them, and force them to flow 
therein. Indeed, it is the most difficult moral 
achievement which men are called upon to per¬ 
form. But it can be done. It has been done 
again and again. And although there is but one 
motive, but one principle of sufficient strength 
to instigate and carry forward this work, there 
is this one, and by it is the work performed. 
“ According to your faith, be it unto you.” 

Alfred’s principles were now too well estab¬ 
lished to permit him to go back; and although 


46 


ALFRED. 


he found it difficult to go onward, yet this very 
difficulty, to a person of his spirit and determi¬ 
nation, would serve rather as an excitement, 
than a drawback. 

It would be interesting and profitable, if it 
were possible to go into detail, to describe step 
by step the processes by which strong habits 
were remodelled, recast, turned in different di¬ 
rections, and made to work out different results, 
or were cast off entirely and replaced by new., 
Such a view of the mind, however, it would be 
clearly impossible to obtain, or, if obtained, to 
state in words. There is so much in the pro¬ 
cess imperceptible to the mind itself, so much 
of the change is produced by growth which is 
never an object of perception, so much is carried 
forward by those sudden influxes of light, whence 
coming we know not, unless directly from above, 
— so much, in a word, is done for us we know 
not how, that even one, who has, himself under¬ 
gone the most remarkable moral change ever 
recorded, would find it absolutely beyond his 
means to express, by any power of language, all 
the minute processes by which it was effected. 


PARDON FOR THE PENITENT. 


47 


Chapter VII. 

PARDON FOR THE PENITENT. 

lt Come, said Jesus’ sacred voice, 

Come and make my paths your choice t 
I will guide you to your home} 

Weary pilgrim, hither come ! 

11 Sinner come! for here is found 
Balm that flows for every wound} 

Peace that ever shall endure, 

Rest eternal, sacred, sure.” 

Mrs. Barbauld. 

If we cannot describe the process itself, 
through which Alfred’s mind was made to pass 
at this time, we can easily conceive with what 
deep solicitude it was watched by his sister. It 
was true of her, as he said of himself, that she 
had not for years known such happiness and 
hope as now. But it was not an unmingled 
feeling. It was not free from trembling fear. 
She knew the strength of his mind, and saw 
that much of it was yet unimpaired. She knew 
his force and pride of purpose. She knew the 
promise and power of God. But, withal, she 
could not forget the iron strength of habit, the 
danger of self-delusion, the power of temptations 
which could not be wholly avoided, the difficulty 
of relishing employments and pleasures totally 
unlike those which had so long filled the life 
and fed every appetite, — and then the hard trial 
of meeting the eyes, resisting the solicitations, 
braving the taunts and scorn of old friends. 
She saw it all, she revolved it continually, she 


48 


ALFRED. 


feared the worst, she hoped the best. And 
hope prevailed over fear. Light came in an¬ 
swer to prayer, that unfailing refuge, that inex¬ 
haustible fountain. 

It was natural that in all this she should make 
Mr. Bentham her confidant, and that her feel¬ 
ings and trials should form the subject of their 
correspondence. While she thus gained aid and 
strength to herself, she accomplished the purpose 
also of raising up for her brother a powerful 
counsellor and deeply interested friend. She had 
greatly desired for him the conversation of a bet¬ 
ter spiritual adviser than herself, and had urged 
him to see the minister on whose worship they 
attended. But he was an elderly man of very re¬ 
served habits, and almost entirely a stranger to 
Alfred, who could not persuade himself to disclose 
to such an one the intimate secrets of his mind. 
“ But,” thought Matilda, “ the relation in which 
he stands to Mr. Bentham may be free from this 
objection ; ” and she was soon able to induce him, 
by repeating to him Mr. Bentham’s expressions 
of interest in his state of mind, and reading 
portions of his letters, to begin a correspondence 
with his future brother-in-law, which produced 
the happiest effects upon his feelings and char¬ 
acter, and laid the foundation of the most cordial 
attachment between them, not only as brothers, 

, but as fellow-believers. It would greatly aid the 
object of our work to extract extensively from 
this correspondence; but we must content our¬ 
selves with a few passages. 

We introduce a part of Alfred’s first letter, for 


PARDON FOR THE PENITENT. 


49 


the sake of showing the tone of constraint and 
apology in which he very naturally began a work 
so entirely new to him. 

After referring to the conversations with his 
sister, which had resulted in his writing, he goes 
on : — 

*** “ And yet, after all this, I cannot help 
feeling surprised at finding myself writing to 
you, and you must be no less so. It seems to 
me a piece of great boldness, and I do not know 
but you may call it impudence; for I remember 
how I shunned you when you were a visiter 
here, and how repulsively I treated you when 
we were obliged to meet. My feelings are al¬ 
tered, so altered, indeed, that in thinking of you 
I can hardly believe I am thinking of the same 
man. The plain truth is, and I may as well 
speak it, I then looked upon you with coldness 
and suspicion; rather dreading you as a spy 
upon my actions, — not to say that I was inter¬ 
ested in the success of another suitor. I thought 
of course, with my notions of a parson, that you 
must be austere and cold ; I used to expect to 
.see my sister transformed into a statue, and I 
was anxious to remove her from such a danger¬ 
ous position. As to coming in contact with 
you myself, I should as soon have thought of 
an intimacy with the Pope. 

“ As I said, my feelings are now changed; the 
circumstances which formerly repelled, now at¬ 
tract me towards you. I am constantly regret¬ 
ting that you are not here, that I might freely 


50 


ALFRED. 


talk with you. My heart yearns for a religious 
friend. I want a counsellor. I want a guide; I 
am often perplexed with questions I cannot an¬ 
swer, and doubts I cannot solve ; and I am in 
danger of perils to which I may be blind. My 
first wish is, — let me state it frankly, I am sure 
you will not deny me, — to know from you, as 
a disinterested witness, your impression con¬ 
cerning my present state, as you have learned it 
from my sister, and what advice you think I at 
this moment most urgently need This is the 
greatest favor you can do me, and I feel that you 
cannot be too frank and plain.” 

Mr. Bentham’s answer to this letter, as might 
well be supposed, was prompt and cordial, and 
extended to a great length. We must be satis¬ 
fied with quoting from it the most important 
passage. 

* * * “ I have long watched you with all the 
tender sympathy of a brother, and all the solici¬ 
tude, if you will permit me to say it, of a spirit¬ 
ual father. I have felt for you, I have prayed 
for you, I have rejoiced and wept by turns. I 
have known every thing, — every change, plan, 
peril, struggle, every virtue and every weakness; 
all have reached me through a friend, whose 
faithfulness you will not doubt, whose openness 
you will not, I trust, have cause to regret. Not 
an interest has your sister felt in you, that I have 
not shared ; not a pang has she known on your 
account, that has not entered my heart; not a 
hope or joy has she experienced, in which I 


PARDON FOR THE PENITENT. 51 

have not participated. And now, no words can 
express the delight with which I shall take you 
by the hand, as a Christian brother, and fellow- 
helper in the service of the Great Master. But, 
my friend, you wish me to be candid. You 
desire, and I know you will honor, that frank¬ 
ness, which has always been one of your best 
qualities. And it is therefore without hesitation, 
that I proceed to answer your request for the 
result of my observations, by plainly stating the 
errors into which I think you have fallen, and 
concerning the tendency of which you need to 
be warned. 

“ I fear, in the first place, from all I have 
been able to learn, that you have thought more 
of the consequences, than of the intrinsic char¬ 
acter of sin. You have felt its consequences, 
and mourned over them; you have seen the 
wreck it has made of your fortunes, the stain it 
has fixed upon your reputation ; you have felt, 
too, in part, its mental and moral retribution. 
But have you considered sufficiently its intrinsic 
vileness, as deep ingratitude to the Giver of all 
good, and daring rebellion against the best of 
friends, as well as the debasement of an immor¬ 
tal soul ? Have you seen the hatrfulness of 
being ‘ at enmity with God’ ? Not that you have 
not viewed it at all in this light; you have per¬ 
haps applied to your conduct this very language, 
— ‘enmity with God/ But you must excuse 
me for reminding you, that it is easier to use 
such words, than to take in' their literal truth 
and whole import. We sometimes use them as 


ALFRED. 


a sort of palliative, an atonement; we fly to the 
strongest terms to express our guilt, and, when 
we have painted it in the blackest colors, we 
feel relieved. This is natural, but there is de¬ 
lusion and danger in it. The heart is as de¬ 
ceitful often in its confessions and humiliations, 
as in its bolder workings. Its arts are manifold; 
there is no garb which they will not assume, 
no sanctuary into which they may not wind their 
way. * Let him that thinketh he stands, take 
heed lest he fall.’ Examine yourself, my dear 
friend, and judge whether my feays on this point 
are well founded. 

“ Another great error has been, I appre¬ 
hend, too much self-confidence. This you have 
partly detected and understood, but not wholly. 
It belongs to your nature, and it will always 
require watching and justify fear. The sudden¬ 
ness and the very sincerity of your repentance 
filled you with a satisfaction, which easily ran 
into complacency. Your strength of purpose, 
too, and natural power of perseverance, tempted 
you to rely upon yourself, and prevented you, 
as I fear it still prevents you in some measure, 
from feeling your need of higher strength and 
divine aid. These you must seek earnestly, im¬ 
portunately, with the deepest self-abasement. 
These you must have, before you can complete 
your own victory, or convince others of their 
degrading and miserable bondage. It is plain, 
that this cannot be done, if they perceive in you 
an overweening confidence and self-complacency. 
On this point also judge for yourself, my friend, 
whether my remarks apply. 


PARDON FOR THE PENITENT. 53 

“ In saying these things, I do not wish to dis¬ 
courage you. Far from it. I would not check a 
single hope, nor bring a shade over the path you 
have entered. God’s light is upon it; — let no 
needless fears darken it. The work of reforma¬ 
tion is too often made a gloomy, disconsolate work. 
Its difficulties and discouragements, its conflicts 
and agonies, are painted in the most sombre colei's. 
They are not to be concealed, not to be softened 
or slighted; they are real; they must be endured. 
But they are not alone, or unmitigated, and 
they should never be represented or treated as 
if they were so. In all true religion there must 
be cheerfulness, happiness; it is a part of re¬ 
ligion, its power, its blessing. The path to it 
may be through anguish and tears, but the sor¬ 
row is only for the night, and joy cometh in 
the morning. Would that the irreligious knew 
this, — could understand that religion is not 
gloom, nor piety another name for melancholy. 
It should be one of your first aims to show by 
your appearance that it is not so, and to con¬ 
vince others that there are none so uniformly 
cheerful, so perfectly happy, as those who are 
habitually governed by religious principle, and 
constantly aiming at high and glorious objects. 
In the mean time, however, I confess I appre¬ 
hend that your greatest danger lies in the oppo¬ 
site direction, in the self-confidence and gayety 
of your temper. Against these you are therefore 
to be especially on your guard, lest by premature 
satisfaction with your attainments, you fail at last 
of the sufficient and perfect result. Remember, I 
5 * 


54 


ALFRED. 


pray you, that a due mixture of self-forgetfulness, 
seriousness, and cheerfulness presents that true 
aspect of the Christian character, which best 
recommends it in the sight of men as of God.” 

The effect of this letter upon Alfred was an 
immediate conviction of the truth of its repre¬ 
sentations, and of gratitude to Mr. Bentham. 
“ Here,” said he to Matilda, “ read this; here 
is a faithful friend; see how honestly he deals 
with me. It is all true, every word of it; and 
I thank him from the bottom of my heart. O! 
what a blessing shall 1 have in my connexion 
with this good man.” 

In replying to Mr. Bentham, he acknowledged 
the justice of his friend’s strictures, and pro¬ 
fessed himself to be deeply affected by them. 
He stated some circumstances explanatory of the 
peculiarities of his character, and the processes 
through which his mind had been passing. We 
give a brief extract. 

“ I have been spending hours and hours in 
looking back upon the past, in trying to see 
myself as I have been, and as I ought to be. 
The more thoroughly I search into my heart, 
the more I see the need of beginning with the 
right principle, and avoiding the errors you have 
pointed out. When I first began to reflect, I 
thought I had not been so very bad. I flat¬ 
tered myself that most of my follies, those at 
least which I had committed before the last 
year, were harmless; that I should need only to 


PARDON FOR THE PENITENT. 55 

relinquish a few of the most opprobrious, pay a 
little more strict attention to my business, and 
a little greater regard to the public duties of 
religion. I thought the timely check which I 
had received, by thus throwing me into my own 
mind, and compelling me to reflection, would 
arouse me sufficiently, and set me right without 
much farther trouble. I could still retain my 
favorite companions, and to a certain point, 
which I thought I saw plainly marked out, my 
favorite pursuits. But, O, how differently does 
all this appear to me now ! I find that the only 
■ thing for me is to renounce the whole. The 
only way to show a true sense of my past sin¬ 
fulness is by a thorough reformation of heart 
and life. I find my whole state has been utterly 
wrong from the beginning, perverse and ruinous; 
that I have been wholly given up to sin and 
to the love of it; that I had scarcely a single 
hope or care for the future. I have lived 
without God in the world ! I have hardly 
ever asked for his protection, never desired his 
presence. I have gone on from year to year, 
receiving his gifts and never thanking him for 
them ! Thanking him ! O, I have received them 
only to pervert and abuse them ! Is not this a 
wretched state ? God be merciful to me! If 
he were not most merciful, my case would in¬ 
deed be deplorable, I might well despair. And 
I confess that I sometimes do despair. Am I 
not deceiving myself, when I feel that there is 
mercy for me ? O, this weight of accumulated 
sin bears me to the earth! How can I hope 


5G ALFRED. 

to be forgiven? polluted as I am, hardened as 
I have been ! I am filled at times with these 
distressing doubts. How can a just and holy 
God pardon such a wretch ! My dear sir, here 
I want light; I want to know what are the 
grounds upon which I dare to hope, and to un¬ 
derstand the principles in which are found the 
assurance of peace and salvation.” 

Of Mr. Bentham’s reply to this letter, there 
is only the following passage to our purpose. 

“ You say you w^ant light, you need a guide. 
Jesus Christ is your true guide, the w r ord of 
God your true light. In them you can find all 
and more than all which you seek, and you can 
find it nowhere else. This I fear, you have not 
sufficiently considered. Go to the Bible, then, 
study it faithfully; now is the time when the con¬ 
stant and faithful perusal of it will animate and 
cheer your progress. It will give you the light 
and help which you cannot obtain from your own 
reflections, or from the best counsel of human 
wisdom; the more you study it, the more full 
you will find it of application to your own pe¬ 
culiar case, and the more deeply you will be¬ 
come interested. You will there find exactly 
what you ask for, the knowledge of those glo¬ 
rious truths which lie at the foundation of hap¬ 
piness here and our hopes for ever; you will find 
impressed on every page the promise of forgive¬ 
ness and acceptance, taught by all the messen¬ 
gers of God, confirmed by the mission and blood 


PARDON FOR THE PENITENT. 57 

of his Son; the great and bright promise of 
God’s mercy, — not to the guilty wretch you were, 
but to the humble, the penitent, the reformed. 
Full as it is of denunciation against sin, and 
condemnation of the ungodly, there is an equal 
measure of pardon and hope dealt out to the 
repenting.” 

Extract from Alfred’s reply: 

“ You have here, I think, struck at the root 
of the evil. It is to my neglect of the Scrip¬ 
tures, that I may chiefly attribute my ignorance 
and sin. I have never gone to this book as 
I should. The truth is, I never loved it, 
never could become interested in it ; I got a 
distaste for it in my childhood, and even now, 
though my mind has been in this awakened 
state, I have not made myself familiar with it. 
I have been too much engrossed with my own 
thoughts to be disposed to give much attention 
to any thing beyond. If I attempted it, I found 
my mind wandering back to its own strong 
workings. And thus, though urged repeatedly 
by my^ sister to fly to the Bible, and having it 
on my table, I yet failed to apply to it as 1 
should have done. I am sensible that I have 
been wrong in this. I shall now go to it; I 
shall now prize it as the true light from heaven. 
But, after all, shall I not need help in reading 
it ? I remember somewhere in the book, when 
the Ethiopian was reading one of the Prophets, 
and was asked if he understood what he read, 
he answered, ‘ How can I, unless some one guide 


58 


ALFRED. 


me?’ Now this is precisely my case; how can 
you expect me to understand without help ? 
How can I expect to find the great and needed 
instruction which I am seeking on this particu¬ 
lar subject, unless some one tell me precisely 
where to look for it, and how to discern it? 
I still need, therefore, your further aid; give me 
a key, give me a hint, open the way for me.” 

The remainder of the letter need not be in¬ 
serted. We give a considerable portion of Mr. 
Bentham’s answer, and with it close our ex¬ 
tracts from this correspondence. 

“ Notwithstanding what you have thus alleged, 
I am still of opinion, that your most satisfac¬ 
tory course upon the whole would be, by your 
own perusal of the Scriptures, to gather from 
them yourself the general scope of their design 
and doctrine. There is no wisdom like that 
which is, drawn, without any human prompt¬ 
ing, from the original fountain-head of truth. 
Still, as you so much desire it, I will not refuse 
to give you what lies in my mind as a bird’s-eye 
view of this matter, and which I think may be 
to you the clew or hint which you demand. As 
regards difficulties attending the subject, there 
are properly none, that is, so far as relates to 
what is necessary for one situated like you to 
.know and understand ; do not allow yourself to 
be perplexed by imaginary ones. There is dark¬ 
ness enough everywhere else, but God’s truth is 
light itself. 


PARDON FOR TIIE PENITENT. 


59 


‘‘To begin then. By our very constitution 
and place in the world, we are ever liable to sin. 
It has been so from the beginning of the world ; 
but one person, from the creation to the present 
hour, has passed through' life without partaking 
of sin. It is this liability, this weakness and peril 
of our nature, which it is the object of revela¬ 
tion to aid. This God has given, first by his own 
word, face to face with his first children, then, 
through rulers and prophets, to one select por¬ 
tion of the race, and then, in a most full and 
perfect manner by his own Son, the messenger 
of truth and mercy to all nations, and kindred, 
and people. We find, on studying these various 
messages, that the will of God is the only perfect 
rule of happiness; that so long as we adhere 
to that, and no longer, we are happy. It has 
been his object to teach us this from the be¬ 
ginning. And does not this whole plan show 
the exceeding goodness and mercy of God? 
Knowing that, if left to our own guidance, we 
could but make ourselves miserable, he has 
spared no pains to teach us his own methods of 
happiness, — true philosophy and true religion. 
And how magnificent a conclusion! Sending 
his own Son among us to set before us a bright 
and living example of ‘ the way, the truth, and 
the life ’! His mission was to ‘ save them from 
their sins ’; sins, the only real evil in this world. 
This he accomplished, by showing us how it 
possible to escape or recover from sin, and by 
assuring us in every possible way that, if we re¬ 
nounce and forsake it, we shall be forgiven, and 


60 


ALFRED. 


accepted, and made one with him and his Father. 
His whole life and sufferings and death, his res¬ 
urrection and ascension, are one great lesson, all 
illustrating his teachings, sealing their truth, and 
showing their value and necessity. We are 
taught by deed as well as by word, not only 
what we are to do, but how we may do it. 
He comes among an ignorant, corrupted people, 
4 slaves to the world, and slaves to sin,’ and he 
breathes into them the breath of life and liberty, 
holiness and love. We have strayed from God, 
he leads us back ; we have forgotten him, he 
teaches what it is to set him continually before us, 
in every act and thought. We rebel against him, 
and lose our love for him ; he comes to reconcile 
our enmity, to renew our love, by precept and 
parable, by miracle and prayer. He ‘ shows us 
the Father,’ not in his dread majesty and power 
alone, but in his long-suffering, his loving-kind¬ 
ness, and his tender mercy. Knowing our back¬ 
wardness and hardness of heart, he mediates 
between us and God; and, that he may leave 
nothing undone to show his love for us, he suffers 
himself to fall into the hands of blood-thirsty 
men, who, ‘ not knowing ivhat they do condemn 
him to die. He dies for us, that we may be 
saved; ‘ that repentance and remission of sins 
should be preached in his name among all na¬ 
tions.’ He rises from the dead, and ascends to 
his own home with the Father, to show us, that 
after death we too shall live again and share with 
him his inheritance of glory, through repentance 
and the remission of sins. 


PARDON FOR THE PENITENT. Cl 

“ My friend, no words can do justice to this 
subject. Ponder it in your heart. If you have 
a heart, and if it is open to truth, you must feel 
the manifold power of Christ. You will trace it 
in every event and every character, you will ac¬ 
knowledge it in every breath you draw. 

“ Here now is your hope. An Almighty Be¬ 
ing who could devise and execute a plan so 
sublime in its benevolence, as the sending his 
own Son for the salvation of our race, will not 
fail to extend its privileges to every individual of 
the race, however humble. You have sinned; 
God and your own conscience only know how 
deeply. The word of the teacher is, ‘ repent, 
and you shall be forgiven, however sinful you may 
have been.’ The forgiveness is always certain, 
where the repentance is sincere and thorough. 
The fulness and security of pardon depend on 
the sincerity and strength of repentance, not on 
the color or weight of the crime. And since 
this work of reformation is a difficult and afflic¬ 
tive one, there is added the encouraging promise 
of aid to weakness, and strength in trials, from 
the spirit of the Great Father himself. ‘ Thanks 
be to God who hath thus given us the victory, 
through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ 

“ This is the appointed path to acceptance 
and happiness; this is the plain way of entrance 
into that blessed presence, where there will no 
longer be this fearful struggling with sin. Here 
we must ever continue to struggle. We have 
strong passions, and must control them. We 
have selfish desires, and we must subdue them. 

6 


62 


ALFRED. 


The process will be continually growing easier, 
but it will continue to go on. You have but just 
begun, and beginnings are hard. Do not despair 
therefore, do not give way to gloom; leave all 
that behind you, in the region from which you 
have emerged ; all before you is now full of light 
and hope.’ 5 

To this letter was appended a postscript dated 
the next day. 

“ P. S. In looking back on what I have writ¬ 
ten, it strikes me that you will think I have 
dealt too much in generalities, and not come 
sufficiently near to a definite and formal reply to 
your questions. I therefore take up my pen 
again, and will attempt to state the subject in a 
little more summary form. 

“ In the first place, then, you will find the 
leading idea of the Gospel to be, that man is a 
sinner. Upon this the whole scheme and all the 
views of revelation are founded. ‘ All have sinned 
and come short of the glory of God.’ 

“ The next leading idea is, that God is merci¬ 
ful. You will find this to be the prime and 
favorite disclosure of the New Testament. 

“ These two, man’s sinfulness and God’s mer¬ 
cy, are the fundamental points from which all the 
rest proceeds, and on which all else depends. 
If man were not a sinner, such a dispensation 
would not have been needed by him; and if God 
were not merciful, he would not have granted it. 

“ Next, man being a sinner, and exposed to 
ruin in consequence, God’s mercy interposes a 


PARDON FOR THE PENITENT. 63 

method for his rescue. He does not condemn 
the world, but seeks its salvation; not without 
terms or conditions, for sin of itself is ruin and 
wretchedness for ever, which no one can possibly 
escape, except by becoming conformed to the 
laws of God. And God displays his mercy in 
this, — that, instead of leaving his creatures to 
perish in the way they have chosen, he interposes 
a Father’s love to lead them away from it. He 
sends his Son to preach repentance and remission 
of sins, and to teach,- that he so loves the world 
that he is not willing that any should perish, 
and to set forth all the strongest motives and 
most persuasive inducements to turn them from 
their evil ways to the obedience of God. So that 
you perceive the Gospel, in its very origin and 
purpose, is a system of grace in God, -and en¬ 
couragement to man. 

“ Do you not see then, how the sinner may 
hope to be saved? If these things be so, what 
right has he to despair? 

“ But here you will say, What then becomes of 
God’s displeasure against sin ? what becomes of 
its deserved punishment? how is it consistent 
with justice in a righteous governor thus to pass 
over the transgression of his law? 

“ I might answer to this, that he who is reform¬ 
ed is no longer a sinner, and therefore no longer 
an object of displeasure; he no longer comes with¬ 
in the penalty of the law, for the law threatens not 
vengeance but justice. But the truth is, that, as 
subjects of revelation, we have no concern with 
the question; it is precluded by the declaration 


64 


ALFRED. 


of Scripture, which asserts that the whole thing 
is an act of grace and mercy. Our part is 
simply to take it as such, and be satisfied to take 
it on trust; not because we can understand in 
what way it is consistent with all the divine at¬ 
tributes, and explain the reasons of the divine 
proceeding, but because it is the divine proceed¬ 
ing, — a measure wholly of Grace on the part of 
God, wholly of Faith on that of man. God ex¬ 
ercises his goodness, and man his trust. Thus, 
through the agency of faith, being made penitent 
and obedient, he becomes such an one as God 
approves, and is forgiven and accepted. 

“ In the mean time you perceive that those, 
who refuse this subjection to God, and remain in 
their sins, remain exposed of course to the threat¬ 
ened penalty. There is ample room for God to 
vindicate his justice in their unavoidable doom. 
It is to these that the strong and fearful denun¬ 
ciations of the New Testament apply, which 
every true penitent has escaped by quitting his 
sins, and living by faith in Christ. He puts him¬ 
self absolutely and unreservedly under the influ¬ 
ence of his doctrine, and thence finds power of 
motive, and strength of will, to accomplish the 
great work. His affections too become earnestly 
engaged and render the work easy, being prompt¬ 
ed, or, as Paul says, * constrained , by the love of 
Christ,’ by devoted gratitude to him whose life, 
teaching, and death, have brought him home to 
God and Heaven. 

“But I must stop. I have not cited texts in 
proof of my positions, as I might have done, for 


PARDON" FOR THE PENITENT. 65 

the reason stated at the beginning, — that it 
would be far more satisfactory to you to search 
and find for yourself. It will be an investigation 
of unspeakable and increasing interest, and may 
God guide you in it to truth and peace. To him 
I commend you.” 

The effects of this correspondence were most 
salutary. It gave a new turn to Alfred’s mind, 
and a new occupation for his time. The Bible 
became his favorite companion ; and he felt the 
astonishment which all feel, whose eyes at length 
are opened to its light, at the wonderful and per¬ 
petually fresh treasures of beauty and wisdom 
which it discovered. In company with his sister, 
and with such aids as Mr. Bentham recommend¬ 
ed, he read, pondered, and prayed, drinking in 
the water of life, and feeling every day more and 
more refreshed. And it was a truly beautiful 
sight to contemplate this brother and sister sitting 
together at the feet of Jesus, their hearts burning 
within them as they listened to his words; and 
then rising to walk hand in hand the way of life, 
and help each other in the path to Heaven. 


« 


6 * 


ALFRED. 


G6 

Chapter VIII. 

A NEW PREACHER. 

“ He is not for our turn ; he is clean contrary to our doings j 
he upbraideth us with our offending the law.” 

Wisdom of Solomon. 

Brinley was not to be quietly let off from 
his band of choice companions. He was too 
necessary to their enjoyment, for them to be 
willing to resign him without a struggle. They 
missed his frank gayety, his abounding social 
qualities, his ingenious plans for diversion and 
misrule. In all schemes, he had been not only 
the bold projector, but the unwearied prosecutor, 
inspiring, as all enthusiasts whether in wisdom 
or folly contrive to do, the zeal and perseverance 
of his coadjutors. He gave the tone, he fur¬ 
nished the entertainment, he led them on. The 
only influence they possessed over him was that 
of sympathy with him, and admiration for his 
powers, and willingness to be led by him. 

It was some time before he suffered himself 
to be attacked by them. He chose to strengthen 
himself in his new views and feelings, to make 
perfectly sure of his own heart, before he would 
expose himself to their assaults. When he felt 
sufficiently strong, he invited their approach, and 
was most eagerly welcomed. We must be ex¬ 
cused if we present the conversation between 
these worthies to our readers in translation. 
Cant language is always disgusting, and should 


A JVEW PREACHER. 


67 


never find place in a book designed for the pure- 
minded and virtuous. 

“ Where have you kept yourself this long 
time, Brinley ? ” said his old friend Reynolds ; 
“your absence has been a long night of des¬ 
pair to us. We have mourned for you like the 
bereaved crocodile? You have not forsaken us 
surely ? ” 

“Yes, I have forsaken you. I am tired of 
the old ways, and am trying something new.” 

“ Indeed! ” said young Stewart, “ I wish you 
would instruct us in that same. I thought it 
was decided long ago that there was ‘ nothing 
new under the sun.’ ” 

“ But I want to know,” said Reynolds, “ what 
has put you out of conceit of us, my dear fel¬ 
low ! Of us, your sworn friends and bosom 

companions ! I cannot conceive of such a piece 
of infidelity. Wherein have we offended?” 

“ In every thing. I will be candid ; I dislike 
your ways. They are altogether hateful and 
contemptible. I despise myself for being' one 
of you. I despise you for remaining as you 
are. I hold your whole course in absolute 

scorn and contempt, and I have taken myself 
out from among you for ever.” 

“ Ha ! ha! ha ! you must be joking ! I like 
that! Stewart, that is something new. I have 
heard nothing so rich this long while. It is a 

perfect treat. You always contrive to surprise 

us, Brinley, with some rarity.” 

“ I am glad you relish this. It has been my 
nourishment ever since I saw you. I am hap¬ 
py to be permitted to provide the same for you.” 


68 


ALFRED. 


“ A second Whitfield! follow it up! You are 
capital on this tack ! Stick to it, Brinley.” 

“ If you think I am in jest, you mistake me 
entirely, Reynolds. I was never more in earn¬ 
est in my life. How I shall convince you of 
it, I know not. I am at an utter loss to find 
words which you will understand, that will ex¬ 
plain my meaning. There is nothing in you, 
that I remember, for irte to take hold of, and 
hang the truth upon.” 

“ You compliment us,” said Doune, who had 
not yet spoken. “ I had no idea that our un¬ 
derstandings were so exquisitely polished, that no 
accidental roughness even is left on which your 
words can find foothold, or that they were so 
elevated as to be entirely beyond your reach.” 

“ A thing may be out of one’s reach, Doune, 
without being very elevated. I meant by what 
I said, only that our minds are now in such 
different states, that we shall probably be quite 
unintelligible to each other for the present. I 
have not forgotten your language, but you have 
not yet learned mine; and I fear I must wait 
until you have, before I can expatiate freely 
upon my present views, for we have absolutely 
no words in common which will explain them.” 

“ O, you are mistaken, entirely,” replied 
Doune. “ I can explain your meaning suffi¬ 
ciently to enlighten these gentlemen. It does 
not require that profundity of information which 
you seem to suppose. The truth is, you think 
you have been converted, and have become 
pious, and have obtained a hope, and are in a 


A NEW PREACHER. 


GO 


gracious state ; and you think we are a set of 
graceless reprobates, with whom it is unfit you 
should any longer associate. You are going to 
put on a long face and a black coat, and be¬ 
gin to drawl and whine, and attend night meet¬ 
ings, and conference meetings, and anxious 
meetings, and inquiry meetings, and leave us 
poor, deluded sinners to be sent to the place 
where there is weeping, and wailing, and — ** 

“ Stop,” cried Brinley, “ you have gone far 
enough. Do not touch the Scriptures with your 
profanity. People always attack the abuses of 
a thing, when they want to make it ridiculous. 
Now 1 have no idea of changing my dress or 
my countenance, or giving my time to religious 
excesses ; but I do intend to give up drinking 
wine, and gambling, and the theatre, and horse¬ 
racing, and Sabbath-breaking, and the whole 
train of profligate practices in which we have run 
riot together. I have come to my senses about 
the whole matter. I think it is enormous folly, 
unworthy of men endowed with common sense. 
It is disgraceful and contemptible to the last 
degree, even if it were no worse, to make brutes 
of rational creatures, and cast ourselves out of 
the pale of decent society.” 

“ I beg your pardon, Brinley,” said Stewart ; 
“ there you are entirely wrong. If that were 
the case, if we were rejected from society be¬ 
cause of our naughtiness, we should soon change 
our measures. But you know it is no such 
thing. Nobody, that is anybody , thinks the worse 
of us for these pranks. Who ever heard of a 


70 


ALFRED. 


young lady’s refusing to dance with a man be¬ 
cause he was fond of a dozen or two of cham¬ 
pagne and so on ? Who ever received one smile 
less, or one invitation less, on account of either 
of the excellent practices you think so shock¬ 
ing ? You know well enough, Brinley, that, up 
to the moment you withdrew yourself from our 
coterie, there was not a girl in the city of any 
fashion, who would not have invited you to her 
house, knowing, as well as I do, what sort of 
places you frequented.” 

“ Ay,” added Doune, “ and danced with you, 
waltzed with you, married you, if you had 
enough to offer to make it worth her while. 
Deny it if you can.” 

“ I do not pretend to deny it,” said Brinley. 
“ I know it is a mortifying, disgraceful truth. 
I do know, that at that time I could have made 
myself far more agreeable among a certain set of 
fashionable people, with a few noble exceptions, 
than I shall ever be able to do again. I can 
only say, that such a state of things is a dis¬ 
grace to them, and no honor to us. Such peo¬ 
ple I do not call good society, let them hold 
what rank they may. With such I have nothing 
more to do.” 

“No,” retorted Stewart; “you will be cut 
in the most decisive manner, let me assure you. 
And also let me inform you, that I think you 
show a confounded bad taste, and that it will 
be by no means contagious to people who have 
a remnant of decent respect for themselves left. 
I think, gentlemen, we had better leave our 


A NEW PREACHER. 


71 


solemn friend to the solitary enjoyment of these 
new-fangled notions.” 

“ No, do not go yet,” said Brinley ; “ I have 
been so long leading you into these sad scrapes, 
that I really wish, if I can, to do something 
towards helping you out, though I am aware 
that it is a much more difficult task. I have 
been one of the wildest and boldest among you, 
and I am the first to change. Do not let me 
be the only one.” 

“ It is a little peculiar,” said Doune, “ that 
the most shameless of the whole set should un¬ 
dertake to reform, and set a pious example to 
the rest. It is an excellent joke, and will af¬ 
ford us abundant amusement, I foresee; — enough 
to make up to us for your loss, Brinley, which 
[ am sure we all regret as the most deplorable 
event that could have happened, an irremediable 
loss.” 

“ There is no danger that we shall suffer long 
from it,” said Reynolds. “ We shall have him 
back among us before we think of it. One 
drop of the real mountain-dew will float away 
all these phantasms which have made his poor 
brain sick.’* 

Brinley smiled. “ It may be so, but I think 
not. I shall never taste the mountain-dew again, 
unless it may be at the White Hills or on the 
Alps. And I am far too happy in my phan¬ 
tasms to give them up of my own accord. O, 
I am happier than I have been for years, much 
as I suffer from the twinges of my conscience, 
which I can hardly explain to you who have 


72 


ALFRED. 


forgotten that God and nature endowed you 
with such a faculty. I shudder to look back 
upon certain scenes, which we thought at the 
time were so delightful; but, with such excep¬ 
tions, I am really the happiest being in exist¬ 
ence.” 

“ O nonsense! ” said Reynolds ; “ don’t try 
to make us believe you are such an infernal 
fool, Brinley. Come along with us, and keep 
this miserable whining cant for those who are 
idiotic enough to be gulled by it. I know you 
too well for that.” 

“ You do know me, Reynolds. You know 
under whose influence I have changed my con¬ 
duct ; and you know, that when once I under¬ 
take a thing with my whole heart, I am apt to 
carry it through. You can judge whether I am 
likely to give up in this instance.” 

“ I know you are an obstinate mule,” retorted 
Reynolds; “ but I never did expect to see you 
make yourself such an ass. While I thought 
you were in your senses, I was willing to listen; 
now I only ask in plain terms, will you go with 
us or not ? ” 

“ Go with you ? Never! never, so long as 
God gives me strength to keep my present reso¬ 
lutions. I will not go with you, but I shall 
sometimes go to you. I shall try yet to bring 
you over to my belief. You may sneer, Rey¬ 
nolds ; you may shake your ‘ ambrosial curls,’ 
Stewart; you may turn on your contemptuous 
heel, Doune; but I shall find my time. You 
cannot escape me. I know all your haunts, you 


A NEW PREACHER. 


73 


know that I do. I can tell where to find you 
napping, when the fumes are slept off, the dregs 
drained, the purse empty, the heart full. There 
are such times, we all know, and it will be 
stjrange if I cannot find you in some such mo¬ 
ment. 1 know where to look for you, whither 
to follow if you should fly. There is not a den 
of evil in this goodly city, in which I cannot fer¬ 
ret you out. My crusade is a holy one, and, 
depend upon it, I shall be right valiant.” 

There was a whispered consultation among 
the confederates, whose countenances expressed 
in a striking manner the effect produced upon 
their minds by the novelty of their position. 
Doubt, contempt, curiosity, perplexity, mingled 
in the most ludicrous manner with unavoidable 
respect for their old favorite companion. One 
only stood aloof. He had been leaning through 
the whole conversation against the mantel-piece, 
taking no part in it, though it was evident that 
he listened with interest. 

The name of a well-known physician to the 
insane was at length distinctly audible from the 
group, and the words, “ Yes, yes, that’s it,” — 
“No doubt of it,” — “ Better send for him,” — 
frequently repeated, broke from them at inter¬ 
vals. The silent person turned to them. “ You 
know that you do not think so! ” he said, with 
a bitter smile. “ Do not make yourselves more 
absurd than you really are. There is not a 
syllable of truth in what you have been saying. 
You know as well as I do, that there is no 
insanity here. If any in this room are candi- 
7 


74 


ALFRED. 


dates for a lunatic asylum, it is ourselves. We 
are the crazed, besotted beings, who require 
some such wholesome regimen. Brinley, I re¬ 
spect and honor you. I wish I had your cour¬ 
age. 1 wish I could throw off these cursed 

shackles as easily as you have done. I wisji 
_____ )) 

“ Come, come, this is too much,” said Rey¬ 
nolds. “ It is bad enough for Brinley to under¬ 
take to preach to us. You, Barton, had better 
set up your Ebenezer elsewhere. We have 
borne more from him than we will from any 
other person living. Don’t undertake to give 
us your blarney. And, Brinley, let me recom¬ 
mend to you, if these are your serious opinions, 
to keep for the future at a respectful distance 
from us. We will have nothing to do with your 
hypocritical sanctity. You talk of coming to 
see us. If you do come, remember that you are 
to come as one of us. 1 warn you in season. 
Dare to approach with this snivelling Methodism 
in your mouth, and you will find our ( hell * too 
hot to hold you.” 

And, with a more signal and tremendous oath 
than any with which he had yet graced his 
speech, Reynolds strode indignantly out of the 
room. 

The other young men took leave of their 
friend in a more kind and decent manner. He 
had not displeased them by his boldness. As a 
mark of spirit and independence, they admired 
his conduct and resolution ; and, though by no 
means prepared to enter into his feelings, they 



A NEW PREACHER. 


■75 

had the good sense to respect them. He had 
not disgusted them by any false pretences, by 
any obnoxious language. Nor had he attempted 
to reason with them, or to persuade them into 
his own views. A 11 this he left for the future, 
being fully persuaded of the wisdom of Solo¬ 
mon’s maxim, “ To every thing there is a sea¬ 
son.” He knew, from his own experience, of 
how little use it is to present religious truths 
or religious claims in an abrupt manner to those 
whose minds are in no state of preparation for 
their reception; when they would be sure to be 
repugnant or distasteful, and serve only to in¬ 
capacitate the person who offered them for any 
farther attempt. 

“ Peace be with them,” sighed Brinley as 
they closed the door. “ They can never tempt 
me again. Would that I had the power to 
tempt them ! I have been successful in en¬ 
trapping the unwary to their ruin ; it will be 
hard, if I cannot exercise the same talent to 
better account. I must do it. I cannot leave 
them in this wretched state. I have been grov¬ 
elling with them in the mire, goading them on, 
and sinking them deeper, and I dare not leave 
them without an effort for their release. I must 
not lose their friendship ; my interest for them 
has strangely increased since I left them. I will 
not avoid them. There is hope for one of them 
at least. Barton never went heart in hand with 
us. ITe is a good fellow; and if I can reach 
none of the rest, he at least will listen to me. 
And the others, why should not the time come 


76 


ALFRED. 


when they can be attacked in their strong-holds, 
as surely as I have been 1 I believe there are 
moments when the most reckless sinner, if he 
is approached in the right way, by one in whom 
he confides, and without cant , can be touched. 
I know what is in their hearts, and I am sure 
I can find it. I can, and therefore I must. 
Be this my future vocation.” 


Chapter IX. 

CONFLICTS. 

u Prud. Do you not yet bear away with you some of the 
things that you were then conversant withal ? 

4< Christian. Yes ! but greatly against mv will; especially 

my inward and carnal cogitations;.might I but choose mine 

own things, I would choose never to think of those things 
more ; but when I would be a doing of that which is best, that 
which is worst is with me.” 

Pilgrim’s Progress. 


It may seem a daring thought in one so 
lately saved from the snares of the tempter, to 
set himself to warn others. It may seem hardly 
possible, that a man so lately plucked as “ a brand 
from the burning,” should feel the strength, even 
if he had the power, to work such a revolution 
in others’ minds, as had been wrought in his 
own. The strong persuasion is to be accounted 
for only by the power of religion when it first 
touches the heart of the young and sanguine. 
Religion has that empire over the human mind 



CONFLICTS. 


77 


which no other influence or motives can have. 
It has a creative power. It not only arouses 
dormant energies, it not only awakens deep, 
powerful, permanent feeling ; it is the Deity 
himself stirring within. Prophets have ceased 
to speak, and God no longer deals face to face 
with his children, but he does enter their minds. 
He makes his own power manifest in them. 
He hot only orders events according to his will, 
he speaks to the heart in tones which require 
only the listening ear of faith to perceive. Is 
there not the promise of a faith that shall re¬ 
move mountains? Ask for this faith, work in 
it, labor with it, God-inspired as you will be, 
and the mountains of evil and sin and moral 
woe will sink before you. The idol which the 
world has set up will fall before this ark of the 
true God. 

Our young friend began already to feel this 
inspiration. He at the same time derived great 
advantage from his natural enthusiasm of tem¬ 
per. It removed many difficulties, which to one 
of a less sanguine temperament might have been 
insurmountable. To him, borne forward by warm 
and generous feelings, it was comparatively easy 
to renounce sinful courses, to place himself out 
of the reach of temptation, to remove himself 
from scenes of vice. He devoted himself to his 
business with a heartfelt assiduity, which sur¬ 
prised all who beheld it in comparison with his 
late indolent and listless habits. 

But these were only the outward manifesta¬ 
tions of reform. There were trials within, to 
7* 


78 


ALFRED. 


which he was peculiarly exposed, of which no 
heart but his own could be conscious. There 
were struggles, which no sense of duty, no fear 
for the future, no hope of immortality, no love 
of God, could prevent him from experiencing. 
The thoughts! O how perilous it is for the 
thoughts to be confirmed in habits of sin ! How 
impossible under the happiest auspices, with the 
purest education, the most careful training, the 
laborious and painful watchings of the expe¬ 
rienced Christian, to keep them ever free and 
pure ! And to the awakened and repentant, 
God only knows how great is the struggle. The 
mind has been for years dwelling upon one set 
of ideas; it has been brimming, and swelling, 
and revelling in luxurious vice. It loves its own 
foul imaginations, it dwells with rapture on vo¬ 
luptuous pleasures, it thrills and maddens with 
the gratification of the senses. Its habits are 
established ; and is it possible, that, however sin¬ 
ful this may all appear to the awakened con¬ 
science, it can at once be changed ? the whole 
course of thought at once be purified and turned 
upward ? 

“ O Matilda,” exclaimed Alfred, “ you con¬ 
gratulate yourself and me that I have given up 
my bad practices. You think, and every body 
thinks, that I have met with a wonderful change. 
But you do not know, and I cannot tell you, 
the miseries I have to endure.” 

“ I have no doubt it is so. I always told 
you it was no easy matter to repent. I have 
only wondered, that, while you were so evidently 


CONFLICTS. 


79 


sincere in your reformation; it should cost you 
so little apparent effort. 1 do not wonder that 
you long to be with your old companions again. 
Their visit the other day has awakened all your 
sympathies with them, and I cannot blame you. 
It must take time to get weaned from them, as 
from every thing.” 

“ It is not that. I am weaned sufficiently 
from them. The revival of my regard for them 
is of a different character from what you sup¬ 
pose. I would not return among them at this 
moment, if I could do it without sin, and with¬ 
out remorse. No, it is something else. It is 
that I am so beset with seductive thoughts. 
There are times when they rush into my brain, 
and crowd away every thing good, and take 
possession, and then keep up their infernal 
dances, till I feel as if reason was leaving me. 
I cannot drive them out. Many times have I 
sprung from my bed, and thrown myself on my 
knees, to implore God in his mercy to keep 
them from me. But I could not do it. The 
holy words came not. These tumultuous sen¬ 
sations would choke every good thought and 
drive it off. Then I would light a lamp and 
take my Bible,— but the words stand out and 
mock at me. I see them, but they will not 
come into my mind;—they se6m senseless, ab¬ 
surd, as I used to think them in my days of 
sin. I have been tortured in this way to a de¬ 
gree, of which I can give you no more idea, 
than I can of the torments of another world ; 
and, if there are worse torments than these re- 


80 


ALFRED. 


served for the condemned, may Heaven have 
mercy upon all who are now living in sin, and 
send them opportunity and grace to repent early. 
This intense agony is more than I can bear.” 

“ My dear brother, I grieve for you. I would 
give the world I could relieve you from this 
misery. But you must see in it, what I shall 
weary you with repeating, the just retribution 
of the life you have led. It is the natural 
course of things, and you cannot expect to 
be exempt. Your powerful, independent spirit 
makes a part of your change of habits easy to 
you ; while your active imagination exposes you 
to these trials of the heart in a greater degree, 
than it would one endowed with fewer suscepti¬ 
bilities. This is your allotted portion. You 
cannot pass from a life of sin to a life of holi¬ 
ness, and feel nothing but joy in the transition. 
It is not the way of Providence in other things. 
There is a penalty attached to every act of sin, 
and the repentant must suffer it as well as the 
obstinate sinner. Thank God, that you are saved 
thus early in life, before habit became too deeply 
fixed to be broken. Now you have good hope 
that it can be overcome by the planting of bet¬ 
ter principles, the cultivation of purer thoughts. 
Continue to struggle manfully, give yourself up 
to God in prayer, and in his own time he will 
come to your aid. But you ought also to use 
all human means to provide against these insid¬ 
ious attacks. Keep yourself constantly employ¬ 
ed -” 


“ Yes, there is hope in that. During the day, 



CONFLICTS. 


81 


when I am busy at my work, I have no time 
for thought of any kind, good or bad ; but good 
is quite as likely to come to me. I am at ease 
and happy.” 

“ Carry your employment as far into the night 
as possible. Let the last rational thought which 
you can control, be of the most spiritual na¬ 
ture. And I should think it would be of no 
small service, to fatigue yourself as much as 
possible, that you may fall asleep at once. It 
is better sometimes to elude than to resist.” 

“ Good advice, if I can but follow it. But I 
get so disheartened, so wearied! I felt strong 
at first, equal to any combat. Now, I really 
should not dare place myself in situations which 
at first I believed would offer me no tempta¬ 
tion. And yet, in my real purposes, there is not 
the least falling off. My love of God, and my 
trust in him, increase every day, with my knowl¬ 
edge ; but my confidence in myself has strange¬ 
ly diminished. And yet” — after a pause — “I 
must do it ” — 

“Do what?” 

“ Something,— what, I know not yet, nor how 
to accomplish my design ; but something I am 
strongly impelled to do, to endeavour at least to 
preserve others from the snares which have fas¬ 
tened themselves upon me. My only hesitation 
in speaking of this matter is, that I know your 
feeling must be, that I am by no means qualified 
for the undertaking. You see me but just re¬ 
leased, hardly yet released from the jaws of the 
tempter, and you will think I ought not to ven- 


82 


ALFRED. 


ture my new principles, not strengthened by 
habit, within the dangerous sphere. But my 
feelings are so strong of gratitude and joy for 
my own deliverance, that 1 long that my former 
friends should share them with me. I cannot 
look calmly on and see one young man after 
another drawn by the same means into the same 
courses, acquiring a relish for the same pursuits, 
which nearly ruined me. I cannot reflect on 
the condition of those from the midst of whom 
I have been so providentially snatched, without 
feeling that I must be doing something,— I re¬ 
peat, that I know not what,— to keep them from 
going on, from plunging deeper. It may be a 
vain wish, but I am sure it is a natural one.” 

“ Yes, Alfred, it is natural, and I think at 
some future time it will be plainly your duty 
When your principles are confirmed by time 
and strengthened by habit, you will be peculiarly 
well qualified to assume such an office. There 
is not a more glorious one. But, as yet, you 
are certainly not worthy to enjoy so great a 
privilege.” 

I suppose not. But at least I may be think¬ 
ing of it, preparing my mind for it, and the 
very desire and intention of doing it will be a 
safeguard to my own heart. If any stronger 
motive is needed to save me from returning to 
bad habits beside those which have already gov¬ 
erned me, it will surely be such a glorious hope 
as this.” 

“ This field is especially open too at the 
present time. There are already laborers in it, 


CONFLICTS. 


83 


who have gone out from the high places, strong 
in principle and fixed habit, armed in panoply 
complete. They have led the way. They have 
pointed out paths in which it will be easy and 
safe to follow. They have shown that the thing 
can be done, and how to do it.” 

“ I believe I shall never find a more difficult 
subject than I have been myself. No one can 
ever love pleasure better than I have done, or be 
more averse to every thing serious. You cannot 
think how it touches me, Matilda, to look back 
upon those times when you used to seat yourself 
by me every Saturday night, to go over with me 
the next day’s lesson. How I did hate it! You 
were so kind and sweet, that I could not bear to 
trouble you with telling you how it was; so I 
went on, excusing myself as often as I could, and 
wishing in my heart that there was neither school 
nor book, nor any thing good in the world. These 
very feelings, strengthening with time, pursued 
me through my whole course, till they brought 
me to the final catastrophe. And now, as often 
as I look upon the past, I feel as much remorse 
for having neglected those opportunities, and 
indulged myself in that state of mind, as I do 
for my later and more flagrant crimes. Blind, 
stupid, obstinate creature that I was! Why 
could not I foresee to what it would lead me ? ” 

“ I always felt,” replied Matilda, “ that this 
state of your mind was partly my fault, or mis¬ 
fortune. I knew that I did not interest you in 
religious subjects; and I feel that it was more 
from my own want of faculty, than your cold- 


84 


ALFRED. 


ness of heart. You know I have no ingenuity, 
no variety of powers, no gift of persuasive lan¬ 
guage, only the plain straight-forward love and 
knowledge of unvarnished truth. Your mind 
required something more than this, some gilding, 
some attractive dress,— or truth had no charm 
for you. These very qualities which enable one 
to adorn truth, you yourself possess. You have 
some uncommon and beautiful powers; danger¬ 
ous ones too, as you have experienced, for they 
have led you astray. But, turned into the chan¬ 
nel of religious instruction, as you propose, they 
will give you an immense advantage.” 

“ Thank you for such encouragement. O 
what a luxury it is to have some one to whom 
we can freely open our whole hearts, sure of re¬ 
ceiving entire sympathy ! What a blessing have 
you been to me, Matilda, if it were only in this 
one of a countless multitude; yet I think it does 
more to strengthen and warm my affection, than 
all the rest. While I throw myself so complete¬ 
ly open to you, I do not believe I shall have the 
courage or the baseness to disappoint your con¬ 
fidence in me.” 


A STRATAGEM. 


85 


Chapter X. 

A STRATAGEM. 

“ Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.” 

The principal object of Mr. Bentham’s visit 
at this time, was to obtain Matilda’s consent to 
marry and return with him to his distant resi¬ 
dence. This would have been particularly desi¬ 
rable to both parties, if it could have been done 
with prudence. Mr. Bentham had no depend¬ 
ence for support except upon his salary, which 
had hitherto been but just sufficient for his own 
maintenance. Matilda, at the time she engaged 
herself to him, had no doubt it would be in her 
power to furnish an addition to this stipend, 
which would amply provide for their united 
wants in the retired situation they were to occu¬ 
py. Her brother had now this additional source 
of regret; his forsaken follies were the means 
of suspending, for an indefinite period, the hap¬ 
piness of two most dear to him. While this deeply 
mortified him, it served as another guard against 
falling again into temptation. He would willing¬ 
ly have made any sacrifice in his power to ad¬ 
vance his sister’s welfare ; still he could not help 
rejoicing that he should not yet lose her society 
at home. It was a powerful aid to him, and at 
this time he felt so little confidence in himself, 
that he trembled to have it withdrawn. 

“ If you think so, Alfred,” said his sister, “ I 

8 


86 


ALFRED. 


am more than reconciled to being obliged to dis- 
appoint Mr. Bentham. If I am of as much con¬ 
sequence to you at present, as you say, it would 
be wrong for me to leave you, even if it were n 
my power. My first duty is to you; and I will 
not voluntarily engage in any which shall inter¬ 
fere with it, as long as my remaining with you 
will be of any use. Make yourself perfectly easy 
therefore. As soon as you can find another 
person to take my place in your heart, I am ready 
to resign it, and not till then. I do sincerely 
wish for your own sake that this may soon hap¬ 
pen. If you could form a strong attachment, 
to one of a firm religious character, it would do 
more towards confirming your own, than any 
thing else A year ago, I should have trembled 
at the idea of your placing another woman in 
a nearer connexion with you than I am, — my 
own sufferings on your account were so great. 
But I think, now, you are abundantly qualified 
to make a person happy, if she should be such 
an one as would also help to keep you in the 
right way.” 

“ I can have no secrets towards you, Matilda. 
I have long been under the influence of one to 
whom you would willingly resign me, if you 
knew her. It is Julia Barton, the sister of my 
friend. I have no hope at present that she is 
favorably disposed towards me, though I had 
reason to believe, when I first went into society, 
that I was not indifferent to her. But I soon 
became so engrossed in pleasure, that I took 
little pains to secure a prize, which I felt sure, 


A STRATAGEM. 


87 


presumptuously enough, that I had it in my 
power to win. It was not until it was well 
known to all, that I had fallen into dissipated 
habits, that she began to treat me with neglect 
and coldness. Then my passion rose at once 
to an uncontrollable height. I offered myself. 
She told me it was impossible for her to unite 
herself with one addicted to dissipation. Her 
principles, her taste, revolted at one whose soul 
was under the dominion of pleasure, as mine 
was. She could not trust me with her happi¬ 
ness. I felt that her decision was just, and I 
respected and loved her the better for it. I made 
a thousand promises to renounce every thing dis¬ 
pleasing to her, to give up all, and reform at once, 
if she would but leave me hope. No, she had no 
faith in sudden reformations, nor in a reform, 
however gradual, made from such motives. She 
grew stronger in her refusal, the more vehement¬ 
ly I urged my suit. So we parted, and I have 
never seen her since. 

“ For & time I thought I had drowned my af¬ 
fection in revelling, and imagined I had forgotten 
her, though I had a cherished feeling that I 
should have been glad to sacrifice my pleasures 
for her sake, if she had given me leave to hope. 
Now that I have been brought to repentance by 
other means, I feel that such a motive could 
never have had sufficient power over me. Noth¬ 
ing earthly could. Since I was restored to 
myself, too, I find that my attachment to this 
admirable woman has increased with my own 
power of estimating her character. And the 


88 


ALFRED. 


hope of one day deserving her affection, kindles 
my good purposes afresh, and mingles with every 
breath I draw. I dare not yet see her, or 
make any attempt to renew my addresses. Her 
brother, of whom I told you I had some hope, 
was at that moment on the point of bankruptcy 
to a very large amount I could make no farther 
impression on him. Play had become his ruling 
passion, and it takes but a short time for that to 
complete a man’s ruin. A prodigious run of 
luck restored him, since that time, to his place, 
and now r sustains him in it; but it is fearfully un¬ 
certain how long such precarious good fortune 
will last. He has his mother’s and sister’s prop¬ 
erty in his hands, and the probability is, that they 
will soon be all involved in one common wreck. 
I have been to him several times, talked with him, 
reasoned with him, and besought him to give up 
this ruinous practice ; but he is weaker than a 
child, and easily led away. He will yield to my 
arguments while I am with him; but the moment 
I leave him, he is pounced upon by others, and 
there is no hope-” 

A note was at this moment put into Alfred's 
hand. It contained a request from Mr. Reynolds 
to meet him at his house on private and very 
urgent business. It appeared to be written in 
deep mental distress, and Alfred quitted his sister 
instantly, to attend the summons. He repaired 
to his friend’s lodgings, hoping to find him in a 
better state of mind, than that in which they had 
parted some time previous. 

He was ushered into a parlour and requested to 



A STRATAGEM. 


89 


wait until Mr. Reynolds was able to see him. In 
a few minutes, the folding-doors were thrown 
open, and there appeared in the other room, a 
supper-table loaded with every delicacy, well 
supplied with wine, and tastefully decorated with 
flowers and lights. It was surrounded by his 
former friends, who had till this moment kept a 
profound silence. They now shouted a loud 
welcome to the unconscious intruder. 

“ This is too stale a trick,” said Brinley, when 
he had recovered from his first surprise. “ Why 
had not you the wit to hit upon some new device 
to entrap the unwary ? I see you want me among 
you to set your ideas flowing into some unhewn 
channel. I am too old a fox to be caught by 
cunning no greater than my own.” 

Alfred took his seat at the table, without allow¬ 
ing them time or liberty to tempt him, took the 
conversation into his own hands, and carried it 
on in a strain of light-hearted gayety, wit, sarcasm, 
and ridicule of themselves and their proceedings, 
which was perfectly irresistible from the good 
humor with which it was done, and the magical 
art by which he evaded all reply or attack. He 
had them completely in his power, and happily 
possessed the presence of mind and the skill to 
extricate himself from what might have proved a 
serious trial. 

“Now,” said Alfred, when supper was over, 
and cards were introduced to take its place, 
according to their rule, ‘ Business first, and 
pleasure afterwards,’ “ now I must leave you. 
You know I will neither drink wine, nor play 
S* 


90 


ALFRED. 


cards. I have eaten with you, to that I have no 
objection; but your wine I have not touched, 
nor will I lay a finger on your cards. You 
know that I dare not. Neither do I care to sit 
and see you play. Beside being a very childish 
employment in itself, I have too much regard 
for you, to desire to see you devoted to it. I 
know the time will come, when you will dearly 
repent of it, as I do now. I have not the heart 
to sit quietly, and see you preparing such ago¬ 
nies of remorse for yourselves, as I have suffered 
on this account.” 

Shouts, groans, and hisses followed this speech. 
The door had been too carefully secured, to 
permit his escape, and he found himself forced 
to remain and witness scenes, at which he had 
never before sat an unemployed spectator. No 
argument, no persuasion, no art of any kind, was 
left untried by the young men, to induce Brinley 
to join in their occupation. He confuted their ar¬ 
guments, threw back their ridicule, reasoned with 
and laughed at them, till he had silenced them. 
Then growing bolder, his heart full of his own 
bitter experience and a genuine interest in them, 
he poured forth such a torrent of powerful and 
persuasive eloquence, setting before them, in the 
strongest light, their dangerous infatuation, the 
whole bearing and extent of the evil they were 
doing themselves now, and in the future, that for 
a single moment they were aghast at the vision 
he conjured up. They seemed almost ready, with 
one impulse, to throw their cards into the fire. 
Barton brought them back to their senses. Flush- 


A STRATAGEM. 


91 


ed with recent success, he madly obeyed the 
urging of his demon, — he would yield nothing, — 
he became frantic, and his frenzy finally prevail¬ 
ed. They played, and soon became so much 
engrossed, that Brinley’s very existence was for¬ 
gotten. 

The hours passed on. The players became 
every moment more deeply involved. Barton’s 
fortune began to waver. Instead of winning, as. 
before, he became continually a loser; and then, 
urged forward by despair, he kept on and on, until 
at three o’clock in the morning he rose from the 
table utterly ruined. Every farthing that he pos¬ 
sessed had been staked and lost. He left the room 
without articulating a syllable. Brinley, no longer 
restrained by his wearied and triumphing com¬ 
panions, instantly followed him. He had seen 
the horror-stricken expression of his countenance, 
and dreaded the consequences of his being left 
to himself. It was with the utmost difficulty 
that he could keep within sight of the object of 
his pursuit, as Barton fled through street after 
street, as if pursued by a fiend. It became at 
length impossible to follow his windings, he 
was soon obscured, and finally lost sight of, in 
the darkness. Brinley was compelled to return 
home, fatigued and disappointed. 


92 


ALFRED. 


Chapter XI. 

THE GAMESTER'S END. 

Blinded by passion, man gives up his breath, 
Uncalled by God. We look and name it death. 
Mad wretch! the soul hath no last sleep j the strife 
To end itself, but wakes intenser life 
In the self-torturing spirit. ” 

Dana. 


Brinley’s three friends felt themselves unfit 
for business the following morning, and nothing 
better offered than to saunter idly about the 
streets, and recapitulate the excitements of the 
night before. Their steps were carelessly di¬ 
rected towards the Western Avenue; and they 
were speculating with some animation upon the 
ill luck of poor Barton, and the inconceivable 
folly and stupidity of Brinley, congratulating- 
each other upon their own brighter fortune and 
better sense, — when they were interrupted by 
two men bearing between them what appeared 
to be a dead body. Curiosity impelled them to 
stop and make some inquiries. One look suf¬ 
ficed to inform the friends that it was their own 
victim, stretched thus cold and helpless before 
them. Barton! who had stood with them the 
very night before, living and active and reck¬ 
less, as themselves, — now gone to his account. 
Could it be? There was no possibility of mis¬ 
take. There was the same expression on his 
livid countenance that had thrilled them for a 
moment, as he quitted them the night before. 


THE GAMESTER’S END. 


93 


What a horrible revulsion of feeling! What 
a sight, — appalling even to their hardened sen¬ 
ses. What should they do? “Let us find 
Brinley,” said one. “ He knew him best, — he 
knows his mother and sisters. Some one ought 
to inform them.” 

“ You know the unfortunate gentleman, then,” 
said the bearers ; “ perhaps it will be best to 
carry him to his friends.” 

“To his friends, — yes — ” 

“ No, O no! ” said Doune, more thoughtful 
than the rest. “ It might be too great^ a shock, 
if it should come upon them so suddenly. We 
must find Brinley, — he will know what is best 
to be done.” 

Brinley was soon found. He had been very 
uneasy through the night, had called at Barton’s 
house early, and, finding he had not been at home, 
had spent the morning in fruitless endeavours to 
discover him, dreading, yet earnest to know his 
fate. His worst fears were realized as soon as 
he met the young men who were in search of 
him. 

“ What a horrible business,” said Doune; “ I 
can hardly reconcile this to my conscience,— 
though I am sure it was more his own fault than 
ours ; —he was so violent with us, that—” 

“ Let us think no more of this now,” said 
Brinley, “ it is too late. Come with me, Doune; 
we have a duty to perform which we musf not 
delay a moment.” 

“ What! do you mean to take me with you to 
his mother’s ? No, no, I cannot do that, I am 
not up to it. It is impossible.” 


94 


ALFRED. 


“ You were not afraid to bring about this evil; 
you ought not to fear looking at the consequen¬ 
ces. Come with me, I do not ask you to do any 
thing, only to be with me. You must.” 

With heavy hearts they set forth upon their 
mission, — to carry tidings to a widowed mother, 
which must fill her heart with inconsolable 
anguish. it is impossible to describe the scene 
they witnessed. — “In the midst of his sins!” 
This was all that escaped the wretched mother: 
It was the idea that weighed most heavily upon 
her, even in the first out-breaking of her feelings. 
It was an infusion of bitterness into her full cup 
of grief, which made it hard indeed to receive. 
Her affections, her hopes, were centred in this 
son. He had caused her the greatest anxiety 
for some time past, though she fondly flattered 
herself that it was but for a time; his disposi¬ 
tions were so excellent, his heart so true, she 
could not but build strong hopes on his eventual 
reformation. Now, — all was over. He had 
himself cut off all hope. 

Why is it that men are so much more willing 
to enter the presence of their Maker, than of 
their fellow-sinners, when they have thus laden 
themselves with accumulated guilt? Is it that 
God is more merciful than man ? It is true he 
is so, but he is also more just. Many sins which 
man would overlook, or justify, or admire and 
imitate, are sternly prohibited by the divine law. 
And yet these sins, in addition to those gross 
vices which men have the power to punish, the 
sinner is willing to carry with him, unrepented 


THE GAMESTER’S END. 


95 


of, into the world of retribution ! What courage, 
or what madness! 

It was impossible, that such scenes could pass 
before the eyes of the most thoughtless without 
arresting attention, without making some impres¬ 
sion however slight. Doune had been an invol¬ 
untary spectator of one of the most trying 
passages which can occur in human life. He 
saw drawn out in deep and painful characters, 
the consequences to which his own course of 
life was tending; consequences of every day’s 
occurrence, which he met recorded in a news¬ 
paper, without a momentary emotion ; he never 
thought of them a second time. But it was far 
different to witness the same thing passing 
immediately under his own observation. It was 
something more impressive to have a companion 
stricken from his side, one whom he had regard¬ 
ed with as much affection as can ever exist 
between unprincipled men, and whom he had 
helped to lead on to this consummation. 

The incorrigible levity of Stewart, the hard¬ 
hearted malignity of Reynolds, could not be 
permanently touched by any thing beyond or 
out of themselves. They said it was a sad affair, 
and they were very sorry; and yet they did not 
know as Barton could have done better. They 
thought, if they should ever be brought into any 
great difficulty, it would be about the easiest way 
to extricate themselves. But Doune had some 
feeling, some thought, some indications of prin¬ 
ciple, — slight material enough, but which might 
yet be wrought into something valuable, if the 


96 


ALFRED. 


right power could be applied at the right moment. 
He said little ; but the agonized features of Mrs. 
Barton, and the silent woe of her daughters, he 
could not by any effort, drive from his imagina¬ 
tion. They haunted him perpetually, and his 
reason as constantly led him back to the fatal 
cause. 

To Brinley this event was filled with unmin¬ 
gled pain. He had felt a peculiar, almost a 
brotherly interest in Barton, and the anguish of 
his mind as he looked back, and traced his own 
influence bearing directly upon this catastrophe, 
became almost too great for endurance. It had, 
however, a lasting and most salutary effect upon 
his character. If his present virtuous endeav¬ 
ours needed support or confirmation, — as what 
human strength does not?—nothing could be 
more effectual than such an experience as this. 

Mrs. Barton and her daughters were left in 
absolute poverty. Through the persuasions of 
Brinley and Doune, the young men who had 
spent the last night of her son’s life in robbing 
him of his property, were induced to restore 
what they had so iniquitously obtained. It was 
merely enough to satisfy the most pressing 
demands of his creditors. Poverty was an evil 
to this bereaved family; for they had been 
brought up in affluence, and hardly knew how 
to give up its ease and comfort. They were 
now to depend upon daily effort for their daily 
bread, to learn to find ease and comfort in 
constant occupation and useful toil, and to dis¬ 
cover that poverty in itself is not an evil, certain- 


REPENTANCE NOT INNOCENCE. 


97 


ly not the greatest. Julia, the oldest daughter, 
who was abundantly qualified for the task, hav¬ 
ing received and profited by the best education 
which could be given her, immediately opened a 
school for young ladies, in which she had the 
happiness of being successful. Her character 
rose into great beauty and excellence under these 
severe trials. Her strength of mind and hicrh 
principle enabled her to support her mother’s 
failing strength, and to bring forward and instruct 
her younger sisters to fill their places as assist¬ 
ants to herself in the school-room, and to her 
mother in the affairs of the household. AH were 
sustained and cheered by her cheerful, buoyant 
spirit. Brinley became in time a source of great 
comfort to them. He visited them constantly, 
and by his devoted attention to their interests 
obtained a place in their hearts, which might 
never have been accorded to him in prosperity. ■ 


Chapter XII. 

REPENTANCE NOT INNOCENCE. 

u Penitence, though the path to peace, as blessed be God it is, 
is a path of pain ; though repentance procures the pardon of 
guilt, it cannot rescue from remorse.” — Jos. Fawcett. 


Brinley began now to feel, in a more dis¬ 
tinct and forcible manner than ever, the retri- 
9 



98 


ALFRED. 


butive justice of the circumstances in which he 
was placed. He would not, it is true, exchange 
his present feelings for any which had preceded 
them ; for, even when he was comparatively 
innocent, he had none of the powerful religious 
sentiments which he now enjoyed. He would 
not have done otherwise for the universe^; for 
what would have been the universe to him, if he 
had lost his own soul ? Still he could not help 
feeling, that his state would have been immeasur¬ 
ably higher, if he had never erred. Repentance, 
efficient as it is, cannot restore innocence. It 
will obtain full and free pardon for sins, but it 
cannot give back to the mind the treasure it has 
lost. 

“ My mind,” said he to his sister, “ is not 
what it once was, what it now might have been. 
It may never again be in so favorable a state 
for the reception of truth, for the perception and 
performance of duty, as if I had not sinned. 
My character can never wholly recover from 
the injury it has sustained. Even my worldly 
prospects are blighted. I endeavour in vain to 
retrieve them. I can never place myself again 
in the favorable circumstances from which I 
voluntarily withdrew. I do not care for this on 
my own account, except as it makes me so use¬ 
less to others, — an absolute incumbrance. How 
long I have prevented your marriage, Matilda! 
I have deprived you of your inheritance, as well 
as of what you had every right to expect from 
me in addition to it. I can do nothing for the 
Bartons, but give them my sympathy, and my 


REPENTANCE NOT INNOCENCE. 


99 


personal services, which, to be sure, they very 
much need. If it had not been for my former 
misconduct, I might perhaps at this moment 
have been permitted to take them all under my 
care and save them from the toil and distress, 
into which they are plunged, partly through my 
means. Then there are the thousand other 
ways in which my change of purpose makes me 
desirous to be useful, but for. which I have left 
myself neither time nor means. How little did 
I foresee such consequences, when I thoughtless¬ 
ly squandered my time, money, and character, 
as things of no value,— when I haughtily refused 
to listen to a word of reproof or advice from 
even the kindest lips! Well,—the lesson is 
severe, but it is invaluable. O if I could teach 
it to others! if I could but convey to other 
minds my own bitter experience, and make 
them feel that in some form or other it must one 
day be their own.” 

“Experience, Alfred, unfortunately can nei¬ 
ther be borrowed nor lent, any more than 
accountability can be removed from one person’s 
shoulders to another’s. It is among the things 
not transferable. Still it has a certain influence, 
and you need not complain, my dear brother, of 
your uselessness in society, while you can make 
this advantage of your own experience. Now is 
your time,— now that your own strength has 
been tried and proved, and found equal to the 
contest, — now that you have had proof upon 
proof of the value and soundness of your own 
determination, — now that your hand is strong, 


100 


ALFRED. 


is your time to hold it out to assist the weak and 
wavering. Stand boldly forward in defence of 
the glorious principles which you have adopted.” 

“ But shall I be trusted 1 ” 

“ You are trusted already, to a degree that 
I confess I could not have expected. Nobody 
thinks of questioning your sincerity. You do 
the world great injustice, if you think they doubt 
it. People are quite ready enough to accept 
promises even of reformation, when it does not 
immediately concern their own interests to do 
so. They are ready enough to give credit for a 
young man’s change of character, and even to 
encourage and support him in it. How much 
you have experienced this friendliness yourself 
from some of the best people. Those who would 
have nothing to do with you, in your days of 
dissipation, are now ready to welcome you among 
them, and trust you as they would any other. 
Here is the very family of poor Barton, whom I 
know they believe you were the principal means 
of leading away,—they already place the great¬ 
est reliance upon you, they treat you with the 
confidence of a son and brother.” 

“ O, I know it. I feel grateful for it, unwor¬ 
thy as I am. God keep me from ever again for¬ 
feiting the confidence of any of my friends. I 
know I have many, too many for one who has 
deserved so little. And this, I assure you, is a 
great stimulus to me, — a prodigious aid to those 
motives which first wrought the change. With¬ 
out those, I could certainly never have reformed ; 
but without such incitements and encouragements 


REPENTANCE NOT INNOCENCE. 


101 


as these, I might not perhaps have been able 
to persevere. I tremble to think what effect 
doubts and frowns and coldness might have had 
upon my resolutions. I greatly fear, — but I 
will not distress myself with imaginary fears ; I 
have enough that are real. I will be thankful,— 
I hope I am, — that events have been so order¬ 
ed for me, as to make my progress so constant 
and delightful as it has been.” 

For some time after the event of Barton’s 
death, Alfred devoted his leisure so exclusively 
to the service of Mrs. Barton and her family, as 
to leave himself little time for other efforts. He 
met his old friends occasionally, and did what 
he could to strengthen their favorable feelings 
towards himself. Reynolds, however, was so 
deeply irritated at the total failure of all his 
schemes to secure the ruin of his former friend, 
that he could no longer summon self-command 
to keep up the show of friendship, and soon 
became so bitter and abusive in his treatment 
of him, that Brinley felt it to be best to avoid 
meeting him entirely. Of Doune, he continued 
to have some hopes. He had several satisfactory 
conversations with him, in which he appeared 
still impressed by Barton’s tragic fate, and 
sometimes half resolved to extricate himself from 
the toils in which he was enveloped. Brinley 
left no means untried to fortify these resolutions, 
urging upon his reason and common sense the 
opposite experience of himself and Barton. Biit 
Doune was deficient in that strength of charac¬ 
ter and inflexibility of purpose, which had car- 
9 * 


102 


ALFRED. 


ried Brinley through his difficulties. He stood 
irresolute, where Brinley had boldly turned his 
back. He quailed and flinched, where Brinley 
planted his foot and stood erect. Stewart’s 
laugh and Reynolds’ sneer had a most distress¬ 
ing effect upon his imagination, and seemed 
likely to defeat effectually all attempts to shake 
off trammels, which already galled his spirit and 
disturbed his repose. 

“ Let him laugh,” said Brinley, to whom he 
had been pouring out his troubles; “ let him 
laugh, if it will do him good; it is all he lives 
for, apparently, and he may as well grow fat at 
your expense as another’s. You are not obliged 
to be within hearing, you know. And as to 
Reynolds, his sneers are common property. It 
is the only thing in which he is really generous; 
he shares them equally with his friends and 
enemies. You are not more free from them now, 
than you would be if you left his companion¬ 
ship.” 

“ Then again,” said Doune, “ I am engaged 
to a young lady who is far from disapproving 
my way of life. She likes spirit and gayety in 
a young man. Not that she would openly advo¬ 
cate any thing really vicious, — but she is pas¬ 
sionately fond of amusement herself, and would 
not very scrupulously inquire either into the kind 
or the degree, to which I might carry my own 
tastes that way. Nothing would appear to her 
more ridiculous, than these half-formed purposes 
of mine. I could never get the courage to 
broach the subject to her; and I am convinced 


REPENTANCE NOT INNOCENCE. 103 

that if I were ever to be found guilty of attend¬ 
ing any of those meetings for improvement 
which you try to pursuade me into, I should be 
either effectually laughed out of any second 
attempt, or cast off at once as utterly unwor¬ 
thy.” 

Brinley looked very much disturbed. “ Is it 
possible,” he thought, “ that woman can so fear¬ 
fully misuse her influence? If she but knew the 
power she has over us, for evil as well as good ! 
— I am no match-breaker,” he said at length, 
“ and am far from giving advice upon such a 
delicate subject; but, if it were my own case, 
I should rather be cast off at once than be so 
shackled. If a man is not at liberty to improve 
himself and his condition, what has he that is 
worth possessing? Better return to savage life 
at once ; better be a slave. What real regard 
can a lady have for you, who has none for your 
immortal nature ? What principle or virtue can 
she possess to obtain yours ? ” 

“ O, I did not look for that sort of thing, 
when I made my engagement. I found beauty, 
and fashion, and lively, agreeable manners, and 
that was enough. But I confess I am rather 
tired of these things by themselves. They do 
not wear well, unless there is some solid foun¬ 
dation of character for them to rest on. One 
does not relish incessant levity. Let me be ever 
so wild, I think I should prefer that a lady should 
rather restrain than urge me on.” 

But the most serious difficulty in Doune’s case 
arose from the deficiencies of his early educa- 


104 


ALFRED. 


tion. Brought up by careless, irreligious parents, 
who had hardly instilled a single sound principle 
of morality into his mind, and from whom he had 
never received an idea of religion, he thought, if 
it ever came into his mind at all, that religion 
was something wholly foreign, with which he 
had nothing to do, a subject, which was, or ought 
to be, confined to priests and women, which no 
person of any spirit or fashion would ever listen 
to for a moment. It was next to an impossibility 
to produce any change in these settled habits of 
thought, or to awaken a particle of feeling. 
Brinley felt that he had no skill to approach the 
subject; for, if he had accidentally touched upon 
it, as a matter of course in connexion with mor¬ 
als, he was met with a broad stare of inanity, 
as if the hearer was listening to an address in 
an unknown tongue. 

It may seem sometimes easier to strike into 
an entirely new path, than to return to one from 
which we have wandered. Yet there is a prep¬ 
aration of heart, the result of early religious 
education, which no after change, no forgetful¬ 
ness, no subsequent worldliness, can wholly de¬ 
stroy. A person will be more easily aroused to 
reflection, who has this advantage, than one to 
whom the whole subject is new, and cold, and 
barren. It may be that words only have kept 
theii hold upon the mind. ' Religious language 
is peculiar. It makes a different, sometimes a 
more permanent impression, even when not 
understood or egregiously misapplied, than any 
other. And although laid aside and forgotten, 


REPENTANCE NOT INNOCENCE. 105 

there it will remain where it was planted, ready 
when the time for its use shall arrive. It may 
not have had strength to preserve from a single 
vice, to overcome a solitary temptation ; yet, if 
the hour of repentance should come, there will 
be a foundation however slight, and the awaken¬ 
ed mind will love to lean upon it, and will learn 
to comprehend and to apply its long-buried 
treasures. 

This is a benevolent provision of the Creator, 
and should encourage those who have the care 
of the young. They are apt to fear, that they 
are producing but slight effects, — that the most 
judicious means they can devise, are thrown 
away. They plant faithfully, they water scru¬ 
pulously, but they look in vain for the increase; 
and though they willingly acknowledge that this 
is in the hand of God, they are impatient that 
he does not vouchsafe it to their efforts, that he 
sometimes withholds the fruit in its season. His 
season may not arrive when you wish, when you 
believe that the time has come. But your labor 
is not in vain. The seeds have fallen out of the 
way, they may have dropped upon the unproduc¬ 
tive rock ; but the time may yet come; — the 
rock may be opened, the seed may fall into the 
cleft and find a soil, the sun may shine upon it and 
quicken it, and it will spring up and bear fruit 
in the latter days, when the hope of a harvest 
shall have forsaken you. We are never to de¬ 
spair, but, by patient continuance in well-doing, 
work for the salvation of others, as if we were 
assured of success. 


106 


ALFRED. 


Chapter XIII. 

CONCLUSION. 

11 And passing rich with forty pounds a year.” 

Goldsmith. 

A visit from Mr. Bentham, in the spring of 
this year, was to be terminated by his marriage. 
This it was no longer necessary to defer. The 
clergy have always possessed a peculiar and an 
enviable faculty of living and thriving upon small 
means ; and Mr. Bentham wisely concluded, that, 
as so many of his brethren had not only existed, 
but lived respectably, and even grown rich, upon 
the moderate income of five hundred dollars per 
annum, it was reasonable to infer that he could 
do the same. He determined at least to make 
the trial. Better to live happily together in 
active, useful poverty, than mope out a separate 
existence in inglorious ease. 

By the most exact and pains-taking economy, 
Alfred had been able to lay by a small sum for 
his sister’s use at this time, which she was in¬ 
duced to accept only from knowing how deeply 
his feelings were involved in the offering. It 
was all he could do; and because it was so 
trifling in comparison with what he had intended 
and knew he ought to have done, it would be 
more grateful to his troubled mind to be permit¬ 
ted to do that little. 

“ If you could conceive/’ said he, as he put it 
into his sister’s hand, “ what mortification 1 


CONCLUSION. 


107 


endure at the thought of your going so absolutely 
penniless into this new situation, you would pity 
me, 1 am sure. You would think my punishment 
bore some slight proportion to the enormity of 
my guilt. I cannot describe to you how wretched 
I feel. And beside my own selfish regrets, I do 
not see how it is possible for you to make your¬ 
self comfortable upon such slender means, gojng, 
as you do, so miserably unprepared. A few 
hundred dollars only, would be -better than noth¬ 
ing, though little enough. But this wretched 
pittance, which is every farthing 1 am worth 
in the world, will hardly furnish you a pair of 
gloves. You ought to have had all the property 
which belonged to both of us, and which I have 
spent, beside the savings of these last years, 
when-” 

“ Do not let us embitter the last hours we are 
to spend together with recurring to the past,” 
interrupted Matilda. “ What could you have 
done in any circumstances, during the last year, 
that would give me a thousandth part of the happi¬ 
ness which I have derived through every day of 
it from your conduct? I can hardly realize 
that you are the same being, for whom I watched 
and suffered so many years, as I thought in 
vain ! But what is the suffering of those years 
compared to the pure joy I derive from you now? 
Your character grows upon me every day. With 
every new form of trial, I find more strength, 
more truth, more genuine faith, than I ever 
dared to expect. May I ask,” she added after 
a pause, “ if Julia Barton does not feel as I 
do?” 



108 


ALFRED. 


“ I cannot tell you. I have never ventured to 
inquire what her feelings for me are. When 
you are gone, I shall be obliged to throw myself 
upon her compassion, for I shall have nothing 
earthly left. And, if her opinion of me has 
changed with my character, 1 may once more 
hope for happiness, though at a very distant peri¬ 
od. And yet I do wrong to talk as if I were 
unhappy, for I am not, I have not been. After 
all that can be said, and truly said, of the thorny 
road of repentance, I have been happier sin e 1 
entered it, than I ever was before in my life; 
that is, I have had a more satisfactory, solid 
kind of happiness.” 

“ I can easily believe it. There is truly a 
peace of mind in the consciousness of doing 
right , which the world cannot take away.” 

“ Do not suppose however,” continued Alfred, 
“ that I mean to say I have been as happy as if 
I had not sinned ; that can never be. But infi¬ 
nitely more so than, in my former course, I could 
ever have been, even if left to the most uninter¬ 
rupted prosperity.” 

“ I can easily understand,” rejoined Matilda, 
“ that your happiness may be less perfect than 
if you had not the memory of former sins, and 
yet that you may be and ought to be happy. The 
joy, that is felt in heaven over the returning sin¬ 
ner, may innocently be shared on earth. Sin 
is the only legitimate cause of misery, surely 
the forsaking it should be joyful. I feel like 
the woman in the parable, who, having found her 
lost piece of silver, was ready to call her neigh¬ 
bours about her to rejoice with her. I should be 


CONCLUSION. 


109 


ill repaid for all my troubles on your account, my 
dearest brother, if you could not rejoice with 
me also.” 

“ I know not who has greater reason,” said 
Alfred. “ I have always felt as if it were right 
to appear cheerful, for the sake of others, even 
if I could not feel so; to bear the necessary con¬ 
sequences of evil with patience ; and even to 
rejoice in them as affording me opportunities of 
proving my sincerity. It has been my great aim, 
too, to cultivate such feelings of love toward God, 
as a child would experience for a parent, as 
w r ell as those of a sinner toward his Judge. I could 
then better realize my dependence upon him, and 
my faith in his power to aid and strengthen my 
resolutions would increase. Beside relieving my 
mind from a great deal of suffering, I am sure I 
have daily gained from this source all my strength 
of purpose, all my power to advance, all my 
security against relapse. I have not dared to 
trust myself for an hour; I knew my own weak¬ 
ness too well. I have put my whole trust in 
God, and he has preserved me.” 

“ It is this which gives me such confidence 
in you. If I saw you trusting to your own 
strength, I should have little faith in your lasting 
reformation. It is this child-like submission 
which I have daily witnessed, that inspires me 
with courage in leaving you. You are in far 
better hands than mine; and if our blessed mother 
could be permitted to witness the doings of her 
earthly family, she could feel that the time for 
delivering up my charge has come.” 

10 


110 


ALFRED. 


“ And you are quite willing it should be so, 
are you not, my friend 1 ” said Mr. Bentham, 
who came in while the few last words were 
said. 

“ Willing, if it must be, as far as my sister’s 
happiness is concerned, and yours. I am willing, 
for her sake, to have my heart broken, as it will 
be, to part with her. It must be a most painful 
separation to both of us. I need not tell you 
how far beyond the common affection of brother 
and sister ours has risen. She has been my 
mother, — my friend, — my guardian angel. Such 
as she has been to me, she of course can never 
be to you. You will not need it. But all you 
do need, and more than all you can ever de¬ 
sire -” 

“ O, stop, ” cried Matilda, “ I cannot suffer 
Mr. Bentham to listen to such nonsense. He 
might possibly believe you; and pray consider 
what trouble you would bring upon me, in en¬ 
deavouring to make him realize your portrait of 
my perfections.” 

“ Yes, let us leave the subject of your sister’s 
perfections, till we can some time enjoy it quietly 
by ourselves. It is a dangerous one, for both of 
us, to descant upon in her presence. It is almost 
the only one on which she would disagree with 
us. Let me rather inquire, how you succeed in 
your missionary project.” 

“ I have the usual success of the missionary, 
— the commoh measure of encouragement. I 
have begun to work upon one convert, and 
although I see no hope of immediate success, 



CONCLUSION. 


Ill 


and ought not perhaps to call him a convert, I 
still have faith, and shall continue to labor. My 
friend Doune is the only person over whom I 
have yet much influence. I have prevailed with 
him to attend church regularly; and, as he is 
under the most powerful preaching we have 
among us, I think it cannot be wholly lost upon 
him. He is now quite willing to throw off 
bad habits; he has shaken himself free from 
a matrimonial engagement that was a hindrance 
to him; and, if he could but be awakened to some 
interest in religion, he would do well. He is at 
present engaged with me in a crusade against 
lotteries, to which, as they have nearly ruined 
him, he feels a particular hostility. I do not 
despair of engaging him actively in some other 
of the good designs of the day.” 

“ Do you mean to say that you have confined 
your efforts to a single individual ? ” said Mr. 
Bentham. 

“ By no means. I have sometimes quite a 
congregation of worthies about me, with whom 
I hold the most bold and inflammatory discus¬ 
sions. I often succeed in interesting them for the 
time, and I am always triumphant in argument. 
Being in the right, you know, gives an unskilled 
person a wonderful advantage.” 

“ Do you not often offend them ? ” 

“ Never, seriously. They often leave me in a 
pet, when I bear a little too hard upon their 
favorite schemes. But my good nature, which I 
am determined not to lose, carries me through 
with them marvellously. I am never angry my¬ 
self, therefore they are left without excuse.” 


112 


ALFRED. 


“ It is a singular enterprise. I wonder you 
had the courage to attempt it.” 

“ I know it seems presumptuous, and was 
certainly a great risk for me to run. But I could 
not help placing, not a proud, but a very humble 
reliance upon my principles, and still more upon 
that power, which has upheld them, and confirmed 
me in them.” 

“ 1 am anxious to know more of the under¬ 
taking itself, and of your way of conducting it. 
It seems to me to require peculiar skill and 
boldness.” 

“ O, your imagination has dignified my plans 
altogether beyond their deserts. I have no settled 
rules of attack and defence, no plan except of 
seizing such opportunities as every day may 
throw into my hand. My design is merely, 
when I meet these people, instead of entering 
into their subjects of conversation, to introduce 
my own, which are as various as possible, some¬ 
times bearing directly upon religion, and always, 
by every method I can devise, trying to insinuate 
into their minds more elevated ideas, more gen¬ 
erous principles, purer tastes, which, at some 
favorable moment, may work some favorable 
change.” 

“ No doubt,” observed Mr. Bentham, “ you 
owe a great deal of your influence to having 
once been behind the scenes in all their move¬ 
ments.” 

“ Undoubtedly. It gives me a confidence in 
my ground. I know where to touch, and when 
to stop, what argument will reach, and where 
persuasion will answer the purpose, better than 


CONCLUSION. 


113 


one, who, with ten times my knowledge of every 
thing else, is ignorant of the by-ways of evil. 
I suppose anybody else, with my feelings on this 
subject, would set up a society for Reform. But 
in dealings with the heart (the only seat of 
reform), I believe individual effort is the only 
means that can be used with any chance of suc¬ 
cess. Forgive my egotism. It would be unpar¬ 
donable at this moment, if you had not betrayed 
me into it.” 


The day appointed for the marriage approach¬ 
ed. It was far from being an occasion of 
unmingled pleasure. To one heart at least, it 
was fraught with almost unmingled pain. The 
moment of severing such strong and peculiar 
ties as bound together this brother and sister, 
must be accompanied with severe suffering. 
Alfred bore it, however, with some composure, 
until after the final departure of his other self, 
when he was not ashamed to indulge, in solitude, 
the full measure of his manly sorrow. 

He consoled himself for the loss of his sister 
by redoubled application to the course of duty 
he had marked out for himself. This* was no or¬ 
dinary one. He devoted his leisure with increas¬ 
ing enthusiasm to the cultivation of his own 
spiritual character, and the moral improvement of 
all over whom he could obtain any influence. His 
success, like that of all who tread the same path, 
rose sometimes above, sometimes fell far below, 
his expectations. He was neither unduly elated 
10 * 



114 


ALFRED. 


by the one, nor was he thrown into despair by 
the. other. The work was not his own, nor had 
he undertaken it in his own might. He tried, in 
his humble sphere, to follow the Great Exemplar, 
to form his character on that glorious model, 
which was his daily study, and in all things 
to keep in view that standard which He had set 
up on earth; “ Be ye therefore perfect, as your 
Father which is in heaven is perfect.” 

His character became in time duly appreciat¬ 
ed and, although he had long ceased to be anx¬ 
ious about his worldly concerns, he did not 
neglect them. He labored assiduously, as a 
religious duty, and the most wholesome moral 
discipline ; and thus consequently became as 
prosperous as prudence, sobriety, and industry 
almost invariably are. 

The hope that he might one day venture to 
ask the woman he had so long loved, to share his 
chosen labors, and fill that place in his heart 
which his sister had left desolate, still cheered 
and animated him, and we leave him with the firm 
persuasion, that he will not be disappointed. It 
was the brightest and richest hope that he ven¬ 
tured to indulge, save one, and that was beyond 
the reach of disappointment, — hope in the mer¬ 
cy of the God he served, through the Saviour 
whom he humbly followed. “ Let the wicked 
forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his 
thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, 
and he will have mercy on him; and to our 
God, for he will abundantly pardon.” 


END. 


0 -**- ^ <? 

THE BETTER PART. 








BY THE AUTHOR 

OF 11 SOPHIA MORTON,” il TRIALS OF A SCHOOL GIRL,” 
il ALFRED,” &C. 


fl 


“ But sometimes Virtue starves, while Vice is fed. 
What then 1 Is the reward of Virtue, bread ? 

“ What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy, 
The soul’s calm sunshine and the heart-felt joy, 

Is Virtue’s prize.” 

Pope. 



BOSTON: 

JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. 

1836 . 







Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1836, by 
James Munroe & Co., in the Clerk's office of the District 
Court of the District of Massachusetts. 


CAMBRIDGE: 
CHARLES FOLS 
Printer to the University. 


0 M , 



Chap. 

1. The Prosperous Family 

2. The Forsaken Widow 

3. Consequences . . . . 














THE BETTER PART.* 


Chapter I. 

THE PROSPEROUS FAMILY. 

Among what class of people are we to look 
for fault-finders ? Doubtless some are to be 
found in all classes, all stations, both sexes, and 
every age. Yet I think, if we search carefully, the 
greater proportion will be seen to be compre¬ 
hended among those, who have apparently the 
least reason for discontent. Those who have the 
largest possessions are most apt to want “ a little 
more.” Those most profusely supplied with 
Heaven’s gifts are least apt to be satisfied with 
their share, or to remember whence it came. 
This habit is one of the most incurable of the 
minor vices, if there be ranks in vice. It grows 
by what it feeds on. 

Mr and Mrs. Talbot dwelt in a flourishing 
and populous city, in a fine house, in which they 
kept their well-furnished table, their well-dress¬ 
ed and well-educated children, and their well- 
filled purse. Nothing, it seemed, could be added 


* The principal incidents of this story are known to 
have occurred within no distant period. 

1 




2 


THE BETTER PART. 


advantageously to their exterior accommodations. 
Had they possessed less of any one thing than 
they appeared to the world to possess, many 
might have thought there was deficiency some¬ 
where. If they had had more, nobody can tell 
where they would have put it, or what they could 
have done with it. Their cup was full, and 
there were those who thought it might even have 
run over to advantage, provided the overflow 
could have reached some of their neighbours. As 
it was, the whole family were completely satu¬ 
rated with good things, so completely that they 
were evidently unconscious of the fact. 

“ Mother, did you observe Mrs. Cunningham’s 
dessert set last night?” said Julia, the oldest 
daughter, as the family were one morning luxu¬ 
riating over the sumptuous breakfast-table. 

“ No, was there any thing remarkable about 
it?” 

“ Remarkable, mother ! yes, indeed ; where 
were your eyes ? I never saw any thing so 
splendid. I wish you had put off* getting yours 
a week or two; we might have had the same.” 

“Yes,” said Mr. Talbot, “ we are always too 
late or too early, before or behind. I can never 
get what I want when I want it; and even if I 
do, I am sure, the next week or the next day, to 
see something I should have much preferred. 
It was only a fortnight after the trouble I had in 
getting my coach-horses last spring, that I had 
the offer of the most superb greys I ever beheld, 
for the identical price I gave for the bays.” 

“ Grey horses are much more to my taste, and 


THE PROSPEROUS FAMILY. 


3 


much the most genteel,” remarked Mrs. Talbot. 
“ I wonder you should have thought of being 
satisfied with any others.” 

“ No matter, madam, if they were lame, or 
blind, or broken-winded, I presume, if they were 
only grey.” 

“ Nonsense! Don’t talk so ridiculously, Mr. 
Talbot; you know well enough what I mean.” 

“ Yes, my dear; your meaning is always suffi¬ 
ciently obvious, always at an opposite quarter 
from mine. It would not take us so long to de¬ 
cide in those important cases, if our tastes were 
more in unison.” 

“ Mamma’s taste is always best, I think,” re¬ 
sumed Julia; “she never minds expense, and 
I am sure the most expensive things are always 
the most tasteful and fashionable.” 

“ A pretty doctrine for a poor lawyer’s daugh¬ 
ter,” said her father. “ And I suppose you will 
form your taste upon mamma’s, and Lucia upon 
yours, and Marianne upon hers, and so on. I 
must take care, how I lose many more clients, if 
that is to be the way.” 

“ Why, father, I thought your business was 
increasing rapidly.” 

“ Increasing ! I have more to do than I know 
how to get through with, to be sure; but every 
thing is in such a wretched state, I can make 
nothing. And I don’t know what increase would 
ever proportion my income to the wants of such a 
set of wasteful, extravagant people as you all are. 
I do not see what is to become of me in the end. 
Here are boys growing up to be sent to college, 


4 


THE BETTER PART. 


and they will be wanting watches and horses, 
and to go to the theatre. And girls to be kept 
at school, or to be dizened out for parties, with 
nobody knows how much lace and jewelry.” 

“I am sure, there is not a young lady goes in¬ 
to company so shabbily dressed as I am,” retorted 
Julia, sullenly. “ I wish you would take a little 
more notice, father, and you would not think it 
strange I should complain.” 

“I do not think it strange that any body should 
complain, in such a world as this. But I doubt 
whether any one has so much reason for it, as I 
have.” 

“You?” said the wife; “what has a man to 
complain of ? I should like to know ! That is a 
woman’s right. If there was ever a life of tor¬ 
ture imagined in this world, it is the life of a 
woman. Perpetual trouble is her lot from morn¬ 
ing till night, — ‘ never ending, still beginning.* 
Servants are a torment, O how insupportable ! 
Children are a torment, company is a double 
torment, and-” 

“ And most of all,” interrupted Mr. Talbot, 
“ a husband is a double-and-twisted, a three¬ 
fold torment-” 

“ And the whole combination,” she continued, 
“ are bringing me speedily to the brink of insan¬ 
ity. Yes, I agree, there is nothing in the whole 
list of grievances, that makes me so completely 
miserable, as to live with a man, whom, do what 
I will, I can never please, — who is made per¬ 
petually dissatisfied and uncomfortable by my best 
efforts for his happiness, and is determined that 




THE PROSPEROUS FAMILY. 5 

every one else shall share in his amiable feel¬ 
ings.” 

“ Thank you, thank you, my dear, for the 
compliment,” replied the husband; “ I can 
return it four-fold, with my whole heart, as no 
one knows better than yourself. I did think, 
when you turned your interesting relations into 
the street, we should have some peace; but, I 
confess, 1 perceive no change for the better.” 

“ No! nor would you perceive any change for 
the better, if you were in Paradise, — not that 
I flatter myself you will ever be gratified with the 
chance of making the experiment.” 

“ Probably not, Mrs. Talbot; our characters 
are too apt to become assimilated to those with 
whom we have most frequent intercourse. But 
I was just going to observe-” 

A summons to the office, at this juncture, de¬ 
prived the amiable wife of the pleasure of listen¬ 
ing to any farther observations from those lips, 
which she had once thought uttered the most 
eloquent, certainly the most flattering language 
ever addressed to a woman’s ear. 

“ Father was in remarkably good temper this 
morning,” said Egbert, “ he has not sworn once; 
though you did put sugar in his coffee, I do not 
believe he noticed it.” 

“ He might not have appeared to notice it, but 
your father never overlooks or forgets the slight¬ 
est omission. I shall hear of it in due time, I 
have no doubt. Julia, what are you going to do 
to-day?” 

“ O, I must look up some new music to prac- 
1 * 



6 


THE BETTER PART. 


tise for the evening. I will not have that eternal 
Belle Saunders ringing her new tunes in my ears 
again. And I have worn all my prettiest songs 
to tatters.” 

“ Cannot you spare time to step into Severini’s, 
and see if he has done my ear-rings 1 ” 

“Why mother! how can you ask, when you 
know, if I am to do any thing, I shall want every 
instant to practise till it is time to dress.” 

“ One of you children must go for me. I 
must have the ear-rings, and my cold is too bad 
for me to think of going out in such horrible 
walking.” 

“ With India rubbers, I should not think it 
would hurt you.” 

“ I cannot go, for it is past school-time now,” 
said Egbert, hurrying out and slamming the door 
with an emphasis. 

“ Lucia,-” 

“ O, mother, do not ask me ! I hate so to go 
into Severini’s! Any thing else for you in the 
world, dearest mother, I had rather do any thing 
else.” 

“ Marianne, I wish you were old enough to 
be trusted.” 

“ Why don’t you send Sam, mother 1 ” said 
Julia. “ He has nothing else to do but perambu¬ 
late the streets. What do people keep servants 
for, I wonder ! ” 

“ Sam has more to do than a person of your 
ladyship’s disposition can ever imagine. And 
beside, do you think I would trust a servant with 
my diamond ear-rings ? ” 


THE PROSPEROUS FAMILY. 


7 


“ You must wear your pearls then, for aught I 
can see,” rejoined the affectionate Julia; “ and 
no very great affair either, I should think. I 
wish mine were half as handsome.” 

“ I intended you should have worn the pearls 
yourself, Julia, if I could have had my others 
from the jeweller.” 

“ O, you darling creature! mother of my heart! 
why could you not have said so sooner ? Seve- 
rini! man of diamonds! if you have not finished 
my precious mother’s jewels, I ’ll have an order 
for your instant apprehension. Time ! time 
enough; — yes indeed, the music may go to the 
ends of Belle Saunders’s fingers, if I may but 
wear those lovely pearls ! ” 

Four times in the course of this day did Julia 
present herself before the man of diamonds and 
broken promises. His final conclusion was, “ No, 
ma’amselle, they cannot be finished. It is im¬ 
possible ! ” 

The music was selected, purchased, tried. But, 
with a heart absorbed in pearl ear-rings, what 
young lady could be expected to perfect herself 
in duet or sonata. The evening came, — but 
not the ear-rings. There was to be a musical 
soiree in honor of the marriage of an intimate 
friend of Julia’s, to whom she had been bride’s 
maid. Julia had an uncommonly fine voice and a 
cultivated taste. But the disappointment, she had 
just met with, so ran in her head, that she could 
neither play nor sing. She had not given her¬ 
self time for sufficient practice on her new pieces, 
and, in the consequent flutter of her spirits, mis- 


8 


THE BETTER PART. 


takes crept into the very songs with which she 
was most familiar. All went wrong ; and, in an 
hoar’s time, she was longing for nothing so much 
as to be at home, and, in an ecstasy of disappointed 
vanity, venting in her heart all the spleen of which 
her nature was capable (and it was a good deal) 
upon her mother, who had put the idea of pearl 
ear-rings into her daughter’s head, without being 
able to accomplish the impossibility of putting 
them into her ears. 

“ What an absurdity ! ” said the mother, as 
soon as she became aware of what was passing 
in Julia’s mind ; “ any thing in reason, child, you 
know I am always ready to sacrifice to you ; but 
my pearl ear-rings — and go without myself ! ” 


Chapter II. 

THE FORSAKEN WIDOW. 

Let us now see what is going on in a certain 
dark, narrow street, at some distance from the 
spacious dwelling which we have just left. In 
the third story of a block of most uninteresting 
houses, in a small and not very comfortable 
apartment, with every mark of poverty about it 
except the want of neatness, sat an old lady in 
an easy-chair, by a small wood fire. Her benev¬ 
olent, resigned countenance gave the token of a 
heart at peace with itself and all the world, 



THE FORSAKEN WIDOW. 


9 


though surrounded by evident indications of 
want and sickness. A young girl, about fifteen, 
sat by her side at work, attending at the same 
time to the baking of some cakes which were 
preparing for supper. 

“ How kind it is of you, my dear, to sit so 
long with me,” said the old lady, after an inter¬ 
val of silence. “ God will reward your good 
heart, though I cannot. It is a happy thing for 
us poor people, who have nothing of our own to 
give, to be able to call upon such a powerful 
friend to express our gratitude for us. Yet I 
wish there was something beside that I could do, 
that would give you any pleasure. I do not love 
to feel so entirely useless.” 

“ O, do not say so, dear Mrs. Carlton,” re¬ 
plied the young girl. “You have already done 
me more good than any one I ever knew, except 
my dear mother. But there is one thing, that I 
do wish you could do for me, very much, though 
I do not like to ask you, because it may be 
wrong, it might give you pain.” 

“ Let me know what it is, dearest; there is 
nothing would do me so much real good, as to 
feel that I could give you any pleasure, who have 
given so much to me. Nothing has cheered my 
old heart, like the sight of your sunshiny face in 
this dark, forsaken chamber. It has renewed 
my spirits, and I believe it has actually lengthen¬ 
ed out my life. Speak out therefore without 
fear ; for there is nothing, Helen, that I could 
easily refuse you.” 

Helen was touched by such an animated proof 


10 


THE BETTER PART. 


of affection from her friend, and she could scarce¬ 
ly articulate her strong desire to know — “ how 
it happens, that, so very good as you are, you 
should be so poor, and be obliged to deny your¬ 
self every comfort, when I have heard-” 

She stopped and blushed. 

“ What have you heard, my dear?” said Mrs. 
Carlton, a slight shade of apprehension passing 
over her countenance. 

“ Why, that you have rich relations.” 

“ It is very true,” she replied with a deep sigh. 
“ I have near relations, who are rolling in 
wealth ; and I dare say to those who know it, 
but I hope they are very few, it may seem strange 

that we should be left so-” 

She paused, as if to consider whether to share 
with this child the only trouble that had ever 
oppressed her heart. “ Children love very much 
to hear stories,” she said at last, “ and I dare 
say you wish to know mine. It is not a very 
pleasant or interesting one, and 1 have never told 
it to any one before. But you are a child, you 
will not make a bad use of it, and I really owe 
it to you, if you are desirous to hear it. It 
cannot injure and may benefit you. So I will 
tell you all you wish to know.” 

“ Oh, how kind ! thank you-” 

“ But I beg, my dear, you will never repeat 
any thing that I tell you, until after my death. 
You will not be compelled to lay an embargo on 
your little tongue for a very long time, you know. 
I am soon to pass away from this troubled world, 
and then it will be of little consequence.” 





THE FORSAKEN WIDOW. 


11 


“ I love to hear you talk of dying,” said 
Helen ; “ you seem to enjoy the thought of it 
so much. And indeed I cannot wonder; for 
what a glorious exchange it will be, — heaven 
for this gloomy chamber, which you never go 
out of now.” 

“Glorious, indeed! to set sail in my old age, 
without any trouble or thought of my own, for 
a new and magnificent country, where I hope 
to receive an inheritance inconceivably more vast 
and enduring than any monarch was ever pos¬ 
sessed of. My poor Fanny, — my only sorrow 
will be in leaving her, — if she could but go 
with me ! And yet, after I am gone, she will 
have only herself to take care of. Well, — I 
must make haste with my story, or she will re¬ 
turn before I have finished, and it would give 
her no pleasure to hear it. 

‘•My first husband, an excellent man, was 
much older than myself; he died soon after our 
marriage, leaving me one little girl, Fanny. She 
was a pretty creature, then, though you would 
never think it now, to look at her pale face and 
sunken eyes. When she was about four years 
old, we had a new minister settled in the place 
where we lived. He was one of the very best 
men I ever knew, except that his character and 
temper were too gentle and yielding for this 
world. He seemed not made for it, and he did 
not live in it long. He was very kind to me, 
and very fond of Fanny ; and after some time 
we were married, and I had another daughter, 
Julia. She grew up to be the most beautiful 


12 


THE BETTER PART. 


creature I ever beheld. We idolized her. My 
poor husband and Fanny saw no fault in her; 
they humored her in every caprice of her little 
heart. Fanny gave up every thing to her, and 
did every thing for her, in her passionate fond¬ 
ness ; and her father could not bear that she 
should be crossed in the slightest whim. I 
dreaded the effect of all this; but I was fond 
and foolish myself, and did not attempt to do 
resolutely what I ought, until it was too late. 
Julia’s temper, naturally fiery, was completely 
spoiled, before I made any judicious efforts to 
control it; and all I could do after it had be¬ 
come incurable, served only to irritate her and 
make her dislike me. Yes, — 1 have every rea¬ 
son to believe, that this precious child, whom we 
actually worshipped, grew to fear and hate her 
mother. Her father she never respected, but 
she loved him; and when he died, she was for a 
time inconsolable. I hoped this her first sor¬ 
row, might have a good effect upon her; but 
far from it. She became more headstrong and 
impetuous than before. She took also a violent 
dislike to Fanny, who did every thing for her, 
and had always made herself a slave to her self¬ 
ish wants. In short, it was impossible for any 
of us to be happy with her. The more we loved 
her, the more it agonized our very hearts to 
see her rushing blindly to destruction, and mak¬ 
ing, in her way, such havoc of the materials, 
that Heaven had put into our hands for happi¬ 
ness. 

“The death of my husband left us entirely 
without resources. Julia, though only sixteen, 


THE FORSAKEN WIDOW. 


13 


had already many admirers, whom she tormented 
by her hard-hearted coquetry. But finding that 
we were every day growing poorer, and must 
do something at once for a support, she con¬ 
sented to marry the wealthiest of them, Mr. Tal¬ 
bot, a lawyer of this place. He was a man older 
than herself by twenty years, but I think she 
loved him as well as she was capable of loving 
any thing; chiefly because he was able to gratify 
her predominant passions, the love of dress, of 
power, and of admiration. 

“Fanny and I accompanied her to her new 
home, and for some years we made a part of 
her family. A very humble part it soon be¬ 
came, I assure you. We were never introduced 
to, or allowed to associate in any way with, Julia’s 
fine, fashionable acquaintance; and as she became 
more intimate with them, she learned all their 
ways, and practised and improved upon their 
follies. I doubt whether any one out of the 
family knew that we belonged to it. We had 
a room to ourselves, and in it we did all the 
sewing of the house; in time, as one child after 
another was added to the family, our room be¬ 
came the nursery, and the care of it was left 
entirely to us. We did all this from choice. 
We had no love of idleness, or what Julia would 
call pleasure. We had not the least desire to 
mix in gay society; least of all could we have 
endured the feeling of dependence upon a man 
like Mr. Talbot, who seldom took any notice 
of us; never, except as inferiors, to whom it was 
a great condescension to speak at all. 



14 


THE BETTER PART. 


“ Still we were content; we were constantly 
busy ; and we felt, that, however scornfully our 
efforts were received, we were useful, and richly 
earned our support. We were very fond of the 
children, and enjoyed their society entirely, for 
we managed them wholly ourselves, and very 
sweet children they promised to he. Their 
mother we saw less and less. She was continually 
surrounded by company ; and whenever she did 
favor us with her presence, it was to complain 
of the trouble and expense of taking care of us. 
‘ She could not spare us a room; her family 
increased so rapidly, it was becoming too serious 
a burden.’ This was the constant tenor of her 
intercourse with us. It was not true, and she 
very well knew it; but this only increased the 
asperity with which she said it. 

“ About the close of the fifth year of our 
residence at Mr. Talbot’s, our situation having 
become by degrees more and more irksome, 
Fanny and I proposed to go away for a while, 
on a visit to some of our old friends and pa¬ 
rishioners in the country, who had sent us fre¬ 
quent and cordial invitations. Our plan met with 
no opposition, and I hoped that a temporary ab¬ 
sence would teach the mistaken Julia the worth 
of her incomparable sister, at least. As for me, 
I knew that I must in time become a burden 
at any rate; and, I confess, I felt the deepest 
solicitude about the manner in which my heart¬ 
less daughter might treat me in an extreme and 
useless old age, if I should be spared so long. 
I am ashamed of such an instance of distrust; 
but it was forced upon me, more by my anx- 


THE FORSAKEN WIDOW. 


15 


iety for Julia than for myself. I could not bear 
to be the means of tempting her to the com¬ 
mission of such glaring sin, as the ill-treatment 
and neglect of a dying parent. Thank God, this 
heavy calamity will be spared me. 

“ When we had completed our visit, and were 
about to return from the country, where we stayed 
as long as decency would permit, we received 
a letter from Julia, expressed in the haughtiest 
terms, informing us, that our services were no 
longer needed, that our room could no longer 
be spared, and that we must seek employment 
and a home elsewhere. This letter came upon 
my poor heart like a thunderbolt. I could not 
realize it. At first, I hardly believed the evi¬ 
dence of my own senses. Fanny, however, was 
not surprised. She said she expected it, and 
was fully prepared. She had made calculations 
for it as an event that must sooner or later take 
place. Her plan was laid in her own mind, 
and now we must not delay to put it in exe¬ 
cution. We returned hither immediately, took a 
cheap room in this street, and here we have re¬ 
mained ever since. We knew the names of 
most of Julia’s rich acquaintance, and had been 
able to discover, through many accidental means, 
the residences of most of them. Accordingly, 
without lettinor ourselves be known, we sought 
employment from them. I took in plain sewing, 
and Fanny employed herself in ornamental work 
of various kinds, in which she was very neat and 
skilful, and was successful in finding a ready 
sale. This lasted until the invention and fre¬ 
quency of Ladies’ Fairs, which almost at once 


16 


THE BETTER PART. 


ruined our trade. We were, till then, able to 
maintain ourselves comfortably without much 
difficulty. Now we were forced to resort to 
many expedients to gain our daily bread. I was 
taken sick and continue so, which, besides add¬ 
ing to our expenses, obliges Fanny to devote 
more of her time to me than she can well spare. 
If it had not been for the great kindness of your 
family, and the other good friends we have made 
since our misfortunes, I know not what would 
have become of us. And yet I should not say 
so; for I know, that, as God has always taken 
care of us, raised up these very friends, and never 
left us to suffer, so I have no right to fear that 
he ever will. We are to thank him for making 
us so happy. In the absence of most earthly 
supports, and the loss of worldly comforts, he 
has taught us our especial dependence on him. 
We do rely upon him with a perfect trust, which 
I do not believe any combination of favorable 
circumstances would have produced. Then, I 
cannot tell you how deeply I have enjoyed the 
cheerful, uncomplaining disposition of my Fan¬ 
ny. She has manifested this through the whole, 
and at times there is a bright, triumphant kind 
of happiness beaming from her eyes, which if any¬ 
body were to see, he could not but imagine 
she had the whole world at her disposal, i am 
sure she is a great deal happier than if she had.” 

“ And do you never hear from your other 
daughter ? ” inquired Helen. 

“ We went to see her repeatedly after we left 
her house ; but there was so little satisfaction in 
our visits, that of late years we have not sum- 


THE FORSAKEN WIDOW. 


17 


moned resolution to go at all. I do not think 
she knows of my sickness, and I do not wish 
she should. 1 am afraid I could not well bear 
the grief of being wilfully neglected by her in 
my last hours. She never comes to see us, 
never inquires about us ; and although she knows, 
that we must unavoidably sometimes suffer for 
the necessaries of life, she has never offered the 
slightest assistance.” 

“ What a wretch ! ” 

“ Do not say so, my child. I never forget, 
that she is my daughter, and that it is partly 
through my own fault that she is what she is. 
I can never forgive myself for it. I do not 
blame her, I never indulge in any recrimina¬ 
tions, and I have never heard a syllable of the 
kind from Fanny. But I pity her most fervently. 
I truly grieve for her. Surrounded as she is by 
all that the world has to give, I know that she 
is miserable; she cannot be otherwise than most 
wretched.” 

“ You would not change places with her, then, 
with all her splendor ? ” 

“ God forbid ! there is not a happier creature 
on his earth than I am, unless it be my own 
Fanny ; and I rather think I am happier than 
she. I am to go home sooner, probably. And 
then she has her little anxieties about me ; but 
I have none for myself, or for her.” 

The entrance of this second happiest person 
in existence put a stop to the conversation. 
No one would have expected, that the summit 
of human felicity had been gained by the gaunt 
2 * 


18 


THE BETTER PART. 


individual, whose sallow complexion, sunken 
cheek, and lack-lustre eye, spoke but too plain¬ 
ly of want and self-denial, of labor unrewarded 
and hope deferred. Yet her cheerful voice, and 
the placid smile which played round a mouth 
that had once been beautiful, assured you, that 
these outward trials had destroyed no portion of 
the soul’s peace within. 

“ Mother,” said she, tenderly arranging the 
cushion on which she was resting, “ you have 
been talking too long, and are too much excited. 
But I must give you one piece of good news 
before you lie down. I have been paid gener¬ 
ously at last for my month’s work, and shall 
have enough to satisfy our good landlord, and 
to get you a bottle of wine and a blanket be¬ 
side.” 

“ Ah, how comfortable that will make us. 
You need the wine as much or more than I 
do. Helen, my dear, good night, and be sure 
to come in to-morrow, and to make a good use 
of what I have told you.” 


Chapter III. 

CONSEQUENCES. 

About a week after this, a carriage was 
driving furiously at an early hour to the crowded 
door of the theatre, where a celebrated actor 
was to favor the public with an exhibition of 



CONSEQUENCES. 


19 


his talents in the character of King Lear. This 
carriage contained the whole family of the Tal¬ 
bots, highly dressed, and in great spirits. The 
coachman stopped suddenly in his career, to ac¬ 
commodate a passing funeral. Mrs. Talbot’s 
head was instantly thrust out, to ascertain the 
cause of delay, and to reproach the man for his 
dilatory movements, when every moment was 
so precious. Her eye fell, as she drew in, upon 
the countenance of the solitary mourner in the 
single carriage, which followed the hearse. It 
was but too familiar. One involuntary groan 
burst from her. It was unheeded, for all were 
absorbed in their own high-wrought anticipations 
of pleasure. Mrs. Talbot sank back in the car¬ 
riage, with a heart for the first time in her life 
touched with remorse ! The truth had flashed 
upon her. “ My mother, — my own mother, — 
the only real friend I ever had, — is dead,— and 

I-” Thought was too bitter, — she could not 

endure it. She stifled her emotion, repressed 
the unwonted feelings which were gushing into 
her heart, and forced herself to enter with ap¬ 
parent unconcern into the festivities of the time 
and place. She scarce knew what the play was 
to be. She had determined upon going that 
night, because everybody was going, and be¬ 
cause it would be almost impossible to obtain 
tickets. Now that there was an object in being 
engrossed by the performances, she began to pay 
assiduous attention. Once engaged in listening, 
she felt that there was deep reproach in every 
word. The whole talent of the dramatist and the 
actor seemed, in league with her conscience, to 


20 


THE BETTER PART. 


have been exerted to strike daggers to her heart. 
The monstrous ingratitude and cruelty of two 
of the daughters of Lear, contrasted with the 
affection and fidelity of the other, brought the 
vileness of her own conduct before her in all its 
enormity. She bore all with firmness; and so 
engrossed was she in struggling with and con¬ 
trolling her awakened feelings, that she did not 
perceive the slight circumstance of her husband’s 
absence. 

When they were to return, he was nowhere 
to be found, and she was obliged to seek the 
services of a common acquaintance, to hand her 
and her daughters to the carriage. Arrived at 
home, Mrs. Talbot’s first inquiries were for her 
husband. He was still absent, and had not been 
at home. This, though an unusual circumstance, 
was not at first alarming. But when the next 
day came, and the next, and no tidings of him, 
her anxiety was without bounds. The upbraid- 
ings of conscience ceased, or were swallowed 
up in absolute terror at the mysterious disap¬ 
pearance of her husband. On the third morn¬ 
ing, a servant discovered a sealed letter, address¬ 
ed to Mrs. Talbot, which had fallen behind the 
card-rack, and escaped notice. It was from her 
husband, who intended she should receive it 
on her return from the theatre. It contained 
the most vehement accusations of her tyrannical, 
uncompromising temper, her extravagant and 
wasteful habits. She had made his home wretch¬ 
ed, his life insupportable ; he could submit to it 
no longer, and he had accordingly left her for 
ever. She had ruined the temper and disposi- 


CONSEQUENCES. 


21 


tions of his children, and must now abide the 
result by herself. He wished her the satisfac¬ 
tion in them, which she must have given to her 
own aged parent, who had at one time been 
left to her tender mercies. He concluded by 
informing her, that he had paid all his own 
debts, and those of hers which he had been able 
to discover, and had placed the wreck of the 
fortune, which she had dissipated, in safe hands 
for the use of the family. It would barely suf¬ 
fice to supply their most pressing wants; yet, 
with economy, it might last until the older chil¬ 
dren were able to take care of themselves. 
There was not a word of regret at leaving his 
home, not an expression of affection or solici¬ 
tude, either concerning his wife or the children. 
Not a syllable did the letter contain, by which 
she could infer where he had gone, or whether 
she was ever likely to see him again. 

The wretchedness of this widowed wife was 
now complete There could not be a more en¬ 
tire prostration of worldly hopes and worldly 
comforts. That which had never been heartily 
enjoyed, was now most bitterly lamented. The 
children were alternately wailing with sorrow, or 
in paroxysms of rage, as they thought of the 
loss of their father, and of their daily pleasures 
and luxuries. They could not at first determine 
which was the most terrible ; but on the whole 
concluded, that if they could have money enough 
to live as they had lived, and do as they had 
done, they could easily reconcile themselves to 
the loss of their father, especially as they knew 
him to be living and well. 


22 


THE BETTER PART. 


Hopes reasonable and unreasonable were alike 
blighted, the unreasonable being of course most 
deeply felt. Troubles, which had yesterday seem¬ 
ed to destroy the comfort of life, to be indeed 
wholly insurmountable, were now unnoticed, for¬ 
gotten, amid the hosts of real evils which throng¬ 
ed in on every side. Concealment of what they 
all considered their degradation was impossible. 
Every thing must be relinquished. Nothing ap¬ 
peared in the prospect before them, but the loss 
of caste, and the necessity of going to work for 
a subsistence. Egbert must give up the thought 
of watches, and horses, and the theatre, and 
enter a store. Julia and Lucia must relinquish 
balls and parties and dress. They had no friends 
among their acquaintance, not one to whom they 
could look for advice or aid, for they had never 
done any thing to insure friendship. They had 
ridiculed some, and envied others, and abused 
all; and now, in their adversity, what hand would 
be raised for their comfort or support ? 

A system, if system it could be called, of 
alternate tyranny and the most reckless indul¬ 
gence had produced among these children the 
natural consequences. The mother found her¬ 
self surrounded by a rebellious group of evil 
spirits, just such as she had been herself in the 
days of her childhood. She looked back upon 
that part of her life with those compunctious 
visitings, which produce in the undisciplined 
mind increased asperity of temper, and corre¬ 
sponding misanthropy and depression of spirits. 

Mrs. Talbot’s later days were embittered by 
every variety of ill conduct and ingratitude in 


CONSEQUENCES. 


23 


her children. They could not, and did not, sub¬ 
mit to the indignity of useful and honorable 
industry. Julia soon eloped with a man of low 
character and profligate habits. Lucia, whose 
fawning, sycophantic character fitted her for 
such a station, obtained the situation of an un¬ 
derling in a family, where, being treated better 
than she deserved, she assumed the airs of a 
person of consequence, took no notice of her 
mother, or pains to alleviate her condition, 
and in the end was ridiculed, despised, and for¬ 
saken by all. Egbert’s career of vice was for 
a time triumphant, but short. He early paid its 
penalty at the tribunal of his country. Poverty, 
and these various trials of the heart, brought 
upon the mother a premature old age. Friend¬ 
less, homeless, the wretched being was at her 
own request conveyed to the hospital, there to 
lay down her weary burden. 

On the next bed to her own, was laid a pa¬ 
tient in the last stages of consumption. Her 
eyes were closed, and there was an appearance 
of the countenance in sleep, which gave indica¬ 
tion of the rapid approach of death. Mrs. Talbot 
gazed long and earnestly, till suspicion became 
certainty. The pallid hue of death could not 
conceal the familiar features. She well remem¬ 
bered how and where she had last seen them. 
The patient opened her eyes. Mrs. Talbot sprang 
from her bed, and planted herself by the side 
of her sister. “ Fanny ! forgive me ! O, forgive 
me! I am wretched, — I am punished, — O, 
forgive! ” A silent pressure of the hand, a glad, 
searching gaze, were the only tokens of recog- 


V 


24 THE BETTER PART, 

nition, that the dying sister had strength to give, 
in the first moment of this most unexpected 
meeting. When at last they could converse, 
how much was to be revealed on both sides! 

“ My time is very short, Julia,” said Fanny, 
when she had heard her sister’s story ; “ and I 
long once to hear from your lips the words of 
humility and penitence. It cannot be, that all 
this has passed without making its impression.” 

“ Humbled I have been, Fanny, and penitent 
I think I sometimes feel, — but what use is 
there in that? I cannot undo all that I have 
been doing through life. I cannot break up 
these fixed habits. Words are nothing, and 
they will not be accepted; and what time have 
I left for deeds? O, Fanny, you have chosen 
that better part, which will never be taken 
away from you. You have been receiving, 
through your whole life-time, evil things, while 
I have had my fill of good things; — now, you 
are going to your reward, and I — do you won¬ 
der that I shudder ? And after all, you have 
been happier than I even in this life ! ” 

A heavenly radiance beamed over the face 
of the expiring saint. “ Happy ! O, how happy 
I have been ! Dearest, dearest Julia, it is not 
too late — He is most merciful —May He for¬ 
give you — O, come and meet us-” 


END. 

















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